


Loosely Ballroom

by marginalia_device, mortifyingideal



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Getting Together, Human AU, M/M, Strictly Come Dancing, idiots to lovers, now rated 'm' for 'mamma mia that's a spicy rehearsal', or alternatively — rated 'm' for 'mort's mum is actually reading this so everyone just be cool', quick quick slow burn: the fic, snake hips tony strikes again, the highs and lows of british reality television, the only thing holding aziraphale back from a career as a professional dancer is being an angel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:41:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 139,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24438355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginalia_device/pseuds/marginalia_device, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mortifyingideal/pseuds/mortifyingideal
Summary: Dust off your dancing shoes, because it’s that time of year again! The new season of Strictly Come Dancing starts TONIGHT on BBC One! A brand new crop of celebs are getting ready to compete for the coveted Glitterball trophy, and they’re a mixed bunch—  ranging from beloved telly presenter Eve Gardener to washed-up stage and screen actor Anthony J Crowley.Whose tango will tantalise? Whose cha-cha will charm us? And who will be doomed by their dreadful, dreadful salsa? Join us every second Saturday at 7pm to find out!Aziraphale is a professional, Crowley is a contestant, and the BBC needs viewers. Does what it says on the tin, if the tin has a whopping great “STRICTLY COME DANCING AU” label on it.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 2441
Kudos: 1328
Collections: Good Omens Human AUs





	1. Launch Week

Had anyone asked Aziraphale to describe his perfect partner, he would have had a very comprehensive answer. He’d had a long time to think about it, after all. They would be intuitive, he’d say. Imaginative. Bold. They would have grace, and flair, and magnetism— his opposite, in many respects.

They would surprise him, because what was the point of a partner who followed your lead with no flourishes of their own? They would challenge him whenever they were together, push him to be the very best version of himself, and he would do the same in return.

They would be responsive. Able to read the cues of his body. And passionate, too, passion is important.

Above all, they should have a strong core, straight arms, and for god’s sake they would keep their frame tight during turns.

Unfortunately, Aziraphale didn’t get any input as to his partner. That was up to the Powers that Be, or God, or Auntie Beeb, however you like. Sometimes Aziraphale thought that he would kill to see the divine mathematics that assigned the _Strictly_ contestants their partners, and other times he assured himself that he didn’t _want_ to know; that whatever value that was applied to him behind the scenes was bound to be unflattering.

 _Ours is not to reason why_ , he thought, as he applied jam to his toast.

He was due at the studio around three, and would meet his new student-slash-teammate around five. There was nothing to do until then but sit in his flat, and twiddle his thumbs, and try to quash the rising unease that had been following him around since last season. It could very possibly be his last, he knew. He was getting on, as his knees informed him every day, and he wasn’t naive enough to pretend that the allure of the show for many wasn’t in watching very beautiful, taut people dance very well and in very revealing clothing. He had a dedicated fanbase amongst women of a certain age, as he was informed every time he ventured online, and he had the luxury of having been around for a long while. People liked to tune in and see a familiar face. He was the human equivalent of a comfortable old armchair, one that the homeowners knew they should throw out but couldn’t bear to part with all the same. 

He took a bite of his toast. 

He was just sitting down to watch This Morning when his mobile rang. He stifled a groan at the name, and considered tossing the wretched little brick into the bin. Instead he tapped the screen with a sticky finger.

“Aziraphale!” Gabriel’s voice was jovial. Aziraphale’s stomach sank. In the background, Aziraphale could hear voices, traffic, the background noise of a busy street. Gabriel liked to walk and talk, like a Sorkin character, and tended to take his conversations outside. He strode around the outskirts of the studio with a Bluetooth headset in his ear, hollering. 

“Good morning, Gabriel,” he said, politely. “Well, I trust?”

“Sure! Sure, well as I can be, today. You sound a little muffled, are you eating?”

“No,” said Aziraphale, swallowing.

“Good, good. Well, I’m just doing the rounds, having a chat with the professionals, that sort of thing. Touching base.”

“Mhmm,” said Aziraphale noncommittally, knowing this was just preamble.

“And of course I wanted to have a talk with you, make sure you weren’t feeling nervous—anxious?—after last year.”

“Not at all,” said Aziraphale, and then immediately realised that was the wrong thing to say.

“Are you sure? I wouldn’t be surprised if you were. That was a pretty close call, you know.”

“I know.” He knew. Of course he knew. He had been present at the meeting, same as Gabriel. 

What had rattled him wasn’t his own _faux pas_ , or the disciplinary. What had rattled him was the scolding he got, like a child who had smeared paint on the dining room wall. He apologised to the general public, of course. He had accepted his mistake, and Aziraphale was not a man to shirk responsibility. But he had also had to sit through a two-hour flogging as Gabriel and his cohorts showed him endless Facebook posts and tweets from people with names like “@fatbottomgrl69” and “@beanslutt”, and frankly Aziraphale could have happily gone his whole life without seeing the specific cruelties levelled at him. His employers had dragged him through the gutters of social media not because it would do them any good, but because they wanted him thoroughly chastened. 

It had worked.

But Gabriel never lost an opportunity to put the boot in.

“You’ve been part of the family for a long time, Aziraphale, so I’m telling you this as a courtesy. Another—what did you call it?—another _faux pas_ like last season and we’re gonna have to re-evaluate our options.”

“I understand.” The cast of a mobster, this man. The subtlety of a hammer.

“Do you? Good. It’s all out of my hands, obviously.” It wasn’t. “If it were up to me, I’d keep you around forever.” He wouldn’t. “It’s just with the outside pressure, the budget shake-ups, et cetera— but you understand, so let’s say no more about it.”

“Yes. Quite. Well, I won’t keep you,” said Aziraphale pointedly.

“Yeah, gotta fly. Lots of phone calls to make, lots of sorting out to do. But I’m glad we had this little chat.”

“Me too.”

“I’ll leave you to your— what is that, toast? Cheat day, I hope. Ta-ta! Keep dancing!”

Gabriel hung up. Aziraphale stared at the screen for a moment. He threw the rest of his toast in the bin. 

* * *

* * *

“Bit harsh, don’t you think? I mean the part about the ‘tache is right, absolutely no idea what I was thinking with that one. Couldn’t even lie and say it was for a role. Hadn’t got anything on then, just grew it for a lark.”

“Crowley.”

“Although, I think if I’d had a different haircut maybe it would’ve worked. Do you think I should get a haircut before the show? You do, don’t you. I knew it was getting too long. What if I try to spin my partner and end up twatting her in the face with a ponytail. Blinded, broken bones, really onto a winner here. Wait, if I’m the one spinning her, aren’t _I_ in danger of being twatted by her hair? Do you reckon they’ll let me wear my shades if I’m like, _‘oh, these are my emotional support shades’_?”

“ _Crowley._ ”

“Anyway, listen to this rubbish, ‘a few broken toes’. I’m not actually going to end up breaking some poor girl’s foot, am I? Shit, _am_ I? They won’t let that happen, right? This isn’t ITV, nobody gets hurt live on air on the Beeb, I— OI!”

Where there had been a phone in Crowley’s hand, open on the article he hadn’t stopped obsessively reading through since publication (and, unfortunately for those around him, he had _not_ skipped the comment section), there was suddenly a distinct lack of phone. Said phone was unsurprised to find itself hurled halfway across the room towards the bin. This had been happening on a semi-regular basis for almost a week now, more than enough time for it to become used to such rough treatment. Its owner, on the other hand, reacted as though this was a new offense being done unto him every single time.

“What was that for!” Crowley said, attempting to get up. He’d like to think of himself as something of an unstoppable force, but the legs currently sprawled across his lap were regularly subject to very intensive and weird yoga sessions, and so had developed the firmness of two well-toned immovable objects.

“I can’t listen to your neuroses anymore, I just can’t. It’s been almost _two weeks_ of this, Crowley.” Anathema didn’t even have the decency to look up at him from her own tablet while she told him off with all the haughty boredom of a governess who has been having this particular argument with her ward for just a bit too long. 

“Well, what do you expect me to do? We’re recording the launch tonight, everyone on the internet thinks I’m an absolute joke, nobody is gonna vote for me— I’m almost definitely fucked and you’ve almost definitely just broken my phone. This is so far from being _my thing_ and we both know it.”

“As your agent-slash-manager-slash-best-slash- _only_ friend, I respectfully disagree. Your thing is what I tell you your thing is. That’s how this works.”

Crowley grumbled and sprawled back against the sofa. It _was_ how it worked between them, though he’d never willingly admit to it. Anathema Device (of Device & Descendants Management LTD) had just shown up at the door to his moderately expensive Mayfair flat one day, insisting he hire her. This was strange for two reasons. The first was that Crowley’s moderately expensive Mayfair flat came with moderately expensive Mayfair security— there were door staff, codes for the gate and lobby, a keycard needed to work the lift and nary a mention of his flat number _anywhere,_ especially not anywhere accessible to the general public. Anathema had apparently managed to circumvent every single one of these security measures and delivered herself directly to his front door. 

The second reason was that the morning she broke into his life, Crowley had been contemplating that maybe it _was_ time to get back out there and find himself a new agent, the kind that wouldn’t snippily say _“It’s your funeral, Crowley”_ and purposefully not intervene when their client announced their intention to get a face tattoo. In retrospect, given their taste for loopholes, Crowley should have foreseen that Beez would use the opportunity to drop him for breach of contract, but as it was he _hadn’t,_ and he’d been licking his wounds over the betrayal for five bloody years. 

It was at this rare moment of personal growth that Anathema had rang his doorbell and shoved a contract in his face. He’d fully intended to make use of his moderately expensive Mayfair security to get rid of her, but it was all just such a weird coincidence, and he’d only had one cup of coffee so far that day, and he found himself so utterly charmed by the fresh-faced twenty-something’s cryptic insistence that the fates cared _very much_ about who he hired to represent him that he had signed on the spot. That had been almost four years ago now. _Strictly_ was, to date, the biggest thing she’d booked him for in all that time, therapy notwithstanding, and this wasn’t a comment on Anathema’s skills as an agent-slash-manager-slash-whatever so much as it was a comment on Crowley’s appeal as a client. 

“You signed up for my neuroses. What would we even talk about without them? The _weather?_ ”

Anathema sighed, finally meeting his gaze. “Look, you’re nervous. I get it, I do, but you have to _trust_ me. Have I steered you wrong before?” 

“Anathema, no offence, but you’ve never really _steered_ me anywhere before.”

“That’s because we were waiting.”

“... for?”

“For the right moment, of course.”

Crowley tried not to let his scorn show on his face. Unfortunately, a recurring theme of his life was that Crowley didn’t like to try very hard if he didn’t absolutely have to. Anathema swatted his arm.

“This _is_ the right moment, asshole. This is the thing that’s gonna change the path you’ve been on, I can feel it. Something big is gonna come out of this.”

“Yes, something big. Absolutely. You’re right. I can see the headlines now. _Anthony J. Crowley, washed up gay actor, gets_ big break _when his spine collapses attempting to lift his partner_. Then at least everyone’ll have a much more convenient excuse for not hiring me.”

For once Anathema held back from teasing in response, which was worse than anything she could have possibly said. After all this time he was fine with making jokes about his blacklisting (a little _too_ fine, according to his therapist) but Anathema acutely suffered the affliction of youth, which meant she still had the energy to feel deeply and care wholly about the injustices suffered by others. It bothered her, when he poked fun at what he just knew she was thinking of as his 'coming-out trauma'. Couldn’t imagine why. There were countless other wrongs in the world, and he’d always thought Anathema was the sort of kid with the spark in her to make them right. What she was doing with him he’d never understand. 

Didn’t stop him from being selfishly grateful for it, though, in a very quiet, internal, tell-her-about-this-and-I’ll-kill-you sort of way. Crowley rolled his head towards her, poking her in the knee in an attempt to diffuse the mood.

“Go on then, I know you’re dying to tell me who else is gonna be on the show and what their star signs are and how their birth charts align with mine and all that shite. Get it over with.”

“I’m not going to tell you anyone’s birth charts right now, Crowley, don’t be ridiculous.” She wrinkled her nose, but there was a smile at the corner of her mouth. “I’m still finding out what time of day some of them were born.”

She proceeded to list off several names Crowley allowed to go in one ear and then quickly out the other. It’s not like he wasn’t aware he was a gimmick hire for this season. He knew what kind of dancer he was, thank you. Everyone else had only watched the video of his disco phase currently circulating the Twittersphere. He’d _lived_ it. It wasn’t necessary for him to pay attention to who any of these other desperate sods were as he was pretty sure (bar any sudden miracles) he’d be out in Week Two. He just had to get his face out there again, even for a bit, not make a complete tit of himself and maybe—

“... and, of course, the dancer who’s been on the show longest is Aziraphale Fell—”

“Hang on, _sorry_?”

Anathema huffed.

“I _knew_ it, I knew you weren’t listening to—”

“No, no no, no, shut up. Say that again, because it sounded like you just said that—”

“Aziraphale Fell is on this show,” they both said in unison. Silence ruled for as long as it possibly could between the pair.

Which was about six seconds.

“Okay, putting aside the fact you _obviously_ didn’t read the email I sent you with all those carefully put-together video links showing who could potentially be your partner and who your competition will be and what kind of dancing style they all prefer—which took ages, by the way, so don’t think I’m letting you off the hook for that one—I’m taking it you know him?”

“I, well, _know him_ is— we were sort of. In a thing. A play. Together. Cast mates. Years ago now.”

“So you remember him, then?” She busied herself with typing on her tablet screen. “What play was it, I’ll have to look it up.”

“Oh it, uh. It never happened. Something came up. Didn’t do it, in the end. Don’t think Fell liked me much, but is that a surprise? Can’t really remember all the details.”

This, of course, was a lie. Crowley remembered the production well, and he remembered _him_ vividly. Sort of hard to forget the thing that made you quit the business entirely and the person who watched you go. It had ended up being less of a swan song and more of a swan dive into total obscurity.

“It doesn’t matter if he’s one of the legions of people who somehow manage to not like you despite your _countless_ charms. He’s gonna be the competition.”

Crowley snorted.

“Hardly much of a competition, surely? Granted it’s been a while since I last saw the man but he didn’t exactly strike me as the kind to be light on his feet.”

Anathema levelled him with a look that would have killed a lesser man on the spot.

“You’ve never seen Aziraphale Fell dance?”

“I told you, this isn’t my _thing_ ,” Crowley said. “They tried it, when I first came out, all that dancing and musical theatre shite and _oh of_ course _it’s not because you’re gay, Crowley, this is just the perfect role for someone like you, your lot just_ love _The Sound of Music don’t they_ and oh no, Anathema, no, please don’t make me watch him, no, you’ve got me trapped here, you _know_ I hate it when people make me watch bloody Youtube—” it was too late, though, despite his attempts to slither out from under her. The tablet had swung round to face him and Crowley was helpless to do anything but watch as a miniature version of the man he once shared a stage with expertly spun his way around the _Strictly_ ballroom, partner in tow, to— oh god, he actually _was_ dancing to _The Sound of Music_. Costumes and all. He was older, yeah, but in many ways he hadn’t aged a day. _That’s because he always looked like an annoying, middle-aged eccentric trapped in the body of an annoying, younger eccentric, he’s just grown into it,_ Crowley reasoned with himself, and yet he couldn’t take his eyes off the screen. Fell looked as happy with the choice of music as Crowley would have been, but even an amateur could tell that despite all that his technique was near-flawless. The stick Fell had wedged up his arse must’ve been what was helping keep his posture so stiff. Fucking hell, was he going to have to stand like that? He'd never hear the end of it from his spine.

“He hasn't ever won,” Anathema’s voice roused him from his internal monologue, “but that doesn’t mean he’s not brilliant at what he does. He is a professional, after all. You two are the oldest men on the show this year, so yeah, Crowley. He’s your competition.”

Crowley ran a hand back through his hair. If he didn’t think so before, he definitely thought so now.

_I’m fucked._

* * *

"You should have heard him, Tracy, it was absolutely dreadful. I felt about three inches tall the rest of the morning," Aziraphale huffed, leaning into his favourite mirror and checking for the fifth time that his braces were laying straight across the shoulders. 

"You’ve said, dear." Madame Tracy’s voice floated to him from behind one of the clothing racks. 

"And my breakfast! Ruined entirely! A complete waste of time— mine and his. It’s not like I needed the reminder of what’s at stake this year."

"You’ve said that too, Aziraphale. You’re going to be late if you keep up this fuss."

Aziraphale restrained himself from rolling his eyes. Even if she couldn’t see him from where she’d sequestered herself amongst the sequins, he felt it would still be rude.

"How _ever_ shall I cope," he grumbled softly to himself, leaning away from the mirror, finally pleased with his presentation. "Are you certain I can borrow these for the show?"

A flurry of orange hair popped over the top of a voluminous amount of fabric.

"Which ones have you got again? Oh! Yes, yes, of course, take ‘em. I think you donated those to the department anyway, and lord knows nobody but you is ever going to request them for an outfit."

"Oh, thank you." Aziraphale smiled at her before gathering up the Pendleton blazer that would complete the look and sliding it on over his shoulders. It would suffice. "May as well look my best, this will probably be the last of these I’m ever allowed to attend if Gabriel gets his way. He’s trying to get rid of me, Tracy, I just know he is."

"That great big trouser-press can’t get rid of you! You’re the only one that keeps me sane around here. I won’t let him, I’m telling you right now, I’m not having it— I’ll march myself right down to his office and threaten to walk, you watch me!"

Aziraphale, not for the first time, felt himself thoroughly warmed by the strength of her regard. Tracy was, after all these years, his closest friend—a complete whirlwind of a woman, and mad as two hatters of course—so whilst he had no doubts she was true to her word on this matter, he wouldn’t hear of it. He’d never ask her to leave, even just as a threat, even for his own sake. 

"You’re the heart and soul of this place, my dear lady. They’d never survive without you."

 _Me, on the other hand_ , he thought, clear as a death knell.

"That’s exactly what I mean, Aziraphale! It’s just not going to happen is it, so no need to worry about it. Can’t cry over milk that’s never been spilt. Now, not that I don’t love to see you but you have a party to attend—"

"It can hardly be called a party, Tracy, it is _work_ after all."

"Oh yes, right you are, poor lamb. And while you’re off _working_ your way through all that lovely free bubbly, I’ll be in here trying to get three more costumes finished by midnight. So out you pop, there’s a love."

Aziraphale gave himself a last once-over before bidding her adieu and making his way out into the veritable rabbit warren that was the _Strictly_ studio backstage corridors. The professionals were spared Shadwell’s annual presentation on 'Vigilance and Diligence'—as though _Strictly_ were some sort of militarised state secret that required guarding from forces both earthly and occult—because four years ago Aziraphale had organised a small but successful coup in which none of the cast turned up. Instead they had made their way directly to the Green Room buffet, and since nobody had stopped or questioned them, they resolved never to mention it to any of the Higher Ups— who notably didn’t attend said safety briefings anyway. The celebrities were not so lucky. They were trapped by contractual Health and Safety obligations and by The Sergeant himself, who would be in full flow right around this moment. Aziraphale would have pitied them had he not been otherwise occupied pre-emptively mourning the death of his own career.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

Aziraphale jumped slightly at the voice in his ear, before wrestling the best smile he could muster onto his face. It still felt like a rather poor effort.

"Adam! I, well, I wasn’t thinking much worth anything, so you may as well keep a hold of that penny. Just, I suppose— here we are again."

"Here we are again, my friend," Adam clapped him on the back, returning the smile jovially. Of his fellow professionals, Adam Goddard was Aziraphale’s favourite and the only one he bothered with on most occasions. He’d joined the show the year after Aziraphale had, making him the longest running cast member besides himself. He was much younger, much taller, much more lithe, and much more popular with the 18-25 crowd. And the 25-30 crowd. And, well, _most_ of the crowds. The press liked to call him _‘God’s gift to women’_ when doing write-ups on the show, which may seem hyperbolic but— well, he really was _very_ handsome. The only thing Aziraphale potentially had on him was being in possession of a full head of hair, but even that was a treacherously feeble victory, considering how well Adam’s face suited the shorn-and-sexy look. Aziraphale tried not to hold it against him and found that he managed well enough most of the time. They shared a common trait, however, in that neither of them had ever won the show, and it endeared Adam to Aziraphale more than he would like to examine without a therapist present. 

They were friendly enough, in the way that coworkers could be, but they lacked _rapport._ No point in letting Adam in on his troubles with Gabriel. Aziraphale didn’t think him the sort, but he’d rather avoid potentially becoming the topic of scandalous workplace gossip. 

_Again._

"Have you seen them, the celebs?" Adam asked, falling out of step with Aziraphale as they drifted into the Green Room and towards the buffet table. The pre-show party had all the glamour and charm of a call centre’s regional office Christmas do, as the cameras weren’t on them yet and the BBC only very reluctantly agreed every year to spring for a few nibbles and a terrible vintage that was never chilled properly. Aziraphale dubiously plucked a glass of champagne from the table and gave an exploratory sip. 

_Oh, for heaven’s sake,_ he thought, _we may as well be drinking crémant_.

"I can’t say I have. I’m assuming you’ve had a peek, though. Anyone take your fancy?"

Adam’s grin, already threatening to split his face, somehow managed an extra few millimetres.

"I don’t wanna jinx it, mate, but I’ve got a feeling this year she’s in there. The Perfect Partner."

Aziraphale made a polite noise of interest, drifting away from the drinks table to the opposite end of the room to join the rest of the dancers, but really didn’t want to get embroiled in this conversation again _._ Adam’s Perfect Partner theory was nothing like Aziraphale’s quiet contemplation of his own perfect partner, which didn’t require any capital letters at all. No, this was along the lines of a destined, star-crossed lovers sort of affair where a professional comes together with their randomly-assigned celebrity on the dancefloor for the first time and something just _clicks_. The judges and audience then have no choice but to recognise such an obvious intervention by fate, and they are carried to victory on a tide of public opinion. Adam was convinced, and had opined to Aziraphale on the subject during several commiseration sessions, that the reason neither of them had won a single season was because they hadn’t yet had their Perfect Partners.

For Aziraphale’s money, it was just good old fashioned bigotry.

The celebrities began to filter in, wearing that haunted soldier look any living soul inevitably took on after spending more than five minutes in the company of Mr Shadwell. Aziraphale studiously ignored them, chatting about absolutely nothing at all with his colleagues. This bit was rather reminiscent of an awkward school-organised disco. Celebrities on one side of the room, professionals on the other. A workplace mixer is unwelcome at the best of times and here all it served to do was fill everyone up with second-rate champagne before they had to go out there and act as though they weren’t terrified at the prospect of being partnered with a dud, all with a stomach held hostage by acrid bubbles. Thankfully the dancing bit of the Launch Show had been filmed the week before, as it was only the professionals who needed to show off any sort of competency at the onset of the programme. This was a much simpler affair. Nothing at all to worry about, just locking eyes for the first time with the person who may help carry you to the top or drag you into the bottom two, all while being recorded by at least twenty different high tech video-cameras from around the ballroom to catch every potential micro-expression of displeasure that might flit its way across your face. 

No pressure whatsoever.

"Aziraphale." Adam’s voice caught his ear once again, low and measured, and he desperately tried to recall the last ten minutes of conversation. What had he missed? Had Adam still been rhapsodising about the Perfect Partner? Was he about to be alerted to her presence?

"Don’t look now, mate," Adam continued. "Just keep cool, keep looking at me, but I think tall, pale and skinny in the corner over there is glaring at you."

Aziraphale, naturally, immediately whipped his head to the other end of the room and locked eyes with—

 _Oh,_ he thought _, Good Lord_.

* * *

Crowley fidgeted.

He fidgeted through the cab ride Anathema forced him to take instead of the Bentley. He fidgeted through the brief meet-and-greet with the Head of Security, a crusty little man called Shadwell who said some pretty ominous stuff about 'the unseen threats that lurk among us'. He fidgeted through the welcome talk and the fire safety talk and the defile-not-our-airwaves-with-your-foul-language talk. _Strictly_ ’s status as a national treasure was repeatedly emphasised. By the end of it, Crowley felt like he’d been conscripted, and as soon they were released into the Green Room for a spot of awkward mingling he dove towards the drinks with palpable relief.

He took his characteristic position in a corner, back against the wall, and checked out the competition. Anathema’s drilling had done him no good, he still couldn’t name half of them. Him off that one thing. Her what was in the papers. If they were anything like the other industry people he’d met over the years they’d be vapid, and boring, and politely condescending, and he’d long decided to adopt a pre-emptive strategy of not giving a single solitary shit about any of them.

He necked a glass of champagne. Wherever _Strictly_ ’s budget went, it wasn’t towards refreshments. He necked another.

He didn’t see Fell.

“Anthony Crowley, yeah?”

Crowley steeled himself. _Here goes_ , he thought.

He turned to face a beautiful, dark-skinned woman who was naggingly familiar in the way TV presenters are naggingly familiar when encountered in the wild.

“Yup. That’s me. Hi.” 

“Well, Anthony Crowley, what d’you reckon this is? I can’t work it out.” She held a canapé between thumb and forefinger, and frowned at it intently.

Crowley squinted. Whatever it was, it looked lukewarm and dodgy. “Crab?” he guessed.

“Shit. I’m vegan,” she said, in a tone often used when informing someone of the death of a cherished relative.

“Condolences. Try one of the apple things, they look safe.”

She eyed a nearby plate, and popped one of the apple things in her mouth.

“Sound. Eve Gardener.” She then pointed to herself, to clarify that it was an introduction. “What’re you doing here, Anthony Crowley?” Her warm brown eyes looked him shrewdly up and down, and Crowley, who had always been fond of women that bossed him around, warmed to her immediately.

“Shameless self-promotion, I’m afraid.” he admitted. “What’re you doing here, Eve Gardener?”

“Donating my appearance fee to charity. I’m doing a load of stuff for wildlife conservation.”

“Ugh, that’s noble of you.”

She laughed, and Crowley, who had been expecting something soft and tinkling, was surprised at how full-throated and kind of dirty it was. He decided he liked Eve. There was something down-to-earth about her.

“Not really. Fits with the brand, y’know? I do nature telly.”

“So you’re the heir apparent, then? When Attenborough snuffs it?”

“A contender, I hope.” She eyed the buffet table again.

“Go on,” said Crowley, nudging her with his foot. “They’ll have us on a diet after this. Once we leave this room it’s no more fun little apple things for the likes of you and me.”

Eve considered this.

“Well, in that case.” After a quick scan of the room, she tipped the entire plate into her handbag.

Crowley, with the instincts of a natural lookout, glanced about for possible holier-than-thou, ‘the sign says only one per customer’ sorts, and that’s when he spotted Aziraphale Fell, and _that’s_ when he stopped paying attention to anything else.

Fell looked relaxed, chatting with a bunch of other professionals at the other end of the room. Crowley studied him. It had been years since he’d last seen the man in person, and he’d tried to avoid anything he was in, though that had gotten easier and easier as time went on. Fell was older, slightly thicker about the arms and middle, in a way that—and Crowley would only have admitted this if _really_ pushed—made him look _good_ , made his body look lived-in.

They’d never been friendly. Hell, they’d barely exchanged words with each other. And yet in Crowley’s mind Fell loomed large, not because of the person he was, but because he had occupied a space and time in Crowley’s life that was stamped into him like a burning brand. As if picking up on Crowley’s attention—or his _vibes_ , maybe, god he’d been hanging about with Anathema too long—Fell glanced away from his coworkers, and looked directly into Crowley’s eyes. Crowley experienced a moment of pants-shitting terror before remembering his sunglasses, and that Fell couldn’t actually tell Crowley was looking right back. He didn’t move. He tried to look as still and bored as possible, like he was staring anywhere but at Fell and his grandad keks and his— were those _braces?_ He felt like the world’s biggest tit, using T.Rex survival tactics on a man in a sweater vest that he last saw a decade ago.

Fell’s gaze moved on, and Crowley breathed a sigh of relief. Next to him Eve was saying something about partners and numbers not adding up, but Crowley was absolutely not listening. As far as he was concerned, he’d weathered the worst thing this shitstorm could have thrown his way and was out the other side. He’d stared into the blandly polite face of his past and it had admitted defeat— or, rather, it had wandered off in search of canapés. Either way, Crowley was calling it a victory. Maybe he’d get partnered with someone brilliant and out-score Fell before he got booted off. Not that he cared, of course. Just fun to think about.

* * *

  
  


All possible avenues of small talk had been exhausted and all bottles of champagne drunk by the time Gabriel appeared. The sound of his hands coming together was like a clap of thunder.

“Showtime!” he bellowed, and then the contestants were ushered out onto the stage floor, fizzing with nerves and bad bubbly, and the professionals were herded backstage to wait for their cue, and it was all so familiar that Aziraphale felt something like despair. _I am here again_ , he thought, and it was a mixture of victory and horror so potent that it made his stomach cramp— although, possibly, that was the canapés. The ballroom looked much the same, though with a fresh coat of paint and a slightly different lighting rig. The audience’s seats had been reupholstered, and about time, although they were all currently vacant save one or two members of the sound crew and some fanatically supportive friends and family. Aziraphale also noted that they still had not done away with the disco ball. It was all so garish and tacky and yet, in his own way, he loved it. If he could have snapped his fingers and appeared before his twenty-two-year-old self, fresh from Guildhall and sporting a truly unfortunate haircut, what would he say in his own defense? _Look, old fellow, we made a good go of it. Our face is out there. We are arguably beloved. Be unafraid._

They clustered around the monitor backstage as the hosts went through their scripted repartee, fluffed it, and went through it again. The celebrities were all doing an admirable job of standing still— all except Anthony Crowley, who was fidgeting. One of the runners darted up between takes to whisper in his ear, and after that he kept his hands clasped behind his back— except then his knee started to jiggle, instead. Aziraphale felt sorry for whichever dancer was saddled with him, as he clearly had no awareness of his own body.

The general idea for this bit of the programme was that each celebrity would have their partner revealed one at a time, to draw out the spectacle as long as possible and eke out the half-hour time slot they had been allotted. This would be broadcast in three weeks’ time, padded out with interviews and vox pops to help the public get to know the roster of celebrities they were already _supposed_ to know anyway. Tonight, Eve Gardener was up first. Aziraphale recognised her from a documentary on lions. She stepped forward with practised charm, and flirted with the hosts, and when Adam Goddard was announced as her partner Aziraphale couldn’t even pretend to be surprised. Adam, bless him, actually punched the air beside Aziraphale’s ear, shooting him a glance of such delight that Aziraphale was compelled to punch the air alongside him— though with considerably more restraint. Adam darted out the door to the stage and reappeared on the monitor much smaller but with enthusiasm undimmed, bounding down one of the curved staircases to the woman Aziraphale already suspected would be his Perfect Partner.

He also suspected he knew who’d fall victim to the _Strictly_ curse, this year.

It all passed quickly after that. One by one his coworkers disappeared from sight and reappeared onscreen, walking out under the arcing lights of the _Strictly_ stage like animals to the Ark, paired off two by two by two. It was a magic trick, of sorts; one moment, they were real people, standing next to Aziraphale, taking up physical space and bothering him slightly with their verbal tics and lack of personal boundaries. The next, they were flattened, shrunken, transformed into the selves they had to be in order to appear on television. Those selves didn’t swear, or make lewd comments. They drank only mineral water and expressed only optimism. As Aziraphale prepared to let the same thing happen to him, he had never felt more disillusioned.

Gabriel edged his way in the door in an attempt to be discreet that was terribly optimistic for such a large man. Aziraphale let him take up space in the corner of his eye only—he did not wish to be drawn into an unpleasant conversation when he would have to smile very convincingly in a few short moments—but Gabriel had never been one for tact, and he clapped a meaty hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder.

“You good, buddy?”

“Yes— yes, quite.”

“We’ve got a good team this year,” Gabriel remarked. “A good lineup.” As if this was American football, rather than a dance competition.

“I think so, too,” said Aziraphale.

“And I think this was a good idea,” said Gabriel. “Innovative. Moving with the times, you know.”

“Mmm,” said Aziraphale, who didn’t have the slightest idea what he was talking about.

There was a moment of silence.

“I hope you know this isn’t personal,” said Gabriel, in a tone which implied that whatever it was, it was very much personal. “We’ve gotta have something every year, to keep the audience coming back. A gimmick, sorta.”

Aziraphale glanced at him. The light from the monitor flickered in his eyes. He scanned the screen with a focus and attention that felt unnatural.

“I was under the impression that our numbers were satisfactory,” Aziraphale said. This wasn’t really his department. He felt delicate broaching it, as if it was a bill someone else had offered to pay.

“Oh, they are. They are. But satisfactory is, well, satisfactory. We’re the BBC’s biggest earner, we can’t afford to rest on our laurels.” He paused. “If we were all happy with satisfactory, Az, where would we be?”

Aziraphale felt a mounting unease. There were only two professionals left in the room, besides himself. There were three celebrities left onstage; a contestant from something called Love Island, which Aziraphale assumed was a soap, a member of a fractured girl band, and Crowley. 

“Anyway, thanks for being such a good sport about this. I know you’re gonna knock ‘em dead! Just try to stay in til about week three, give or take, and as they say, job’s a good one.”

 _It’s good’un_ , thought Aziraphale reflexively, staring at the celebrities. Two men, one woman. He glanced at the other professionals again.

Two men, one woman.

Aziraphale had two main deficiencies in skill: observation, and mathematics. As a result, it took him several seconds to realise what Gabriel meant by _gimmick_ , and in that time another team was partnered up, leaving Aziraphale with a pit in his stomach that was definitely _not_ the canapés and was instead deep and utter dread.

* * *

_Something’s wrong._

By this time in his life, Crowley and the little niggling voice in the back of his head were on good terms. Not _take you down the pub and buy you a round_ good, more _I’ll acknowledge you with a slight nod in the street when we pass each other_ good. It had been a long, complex road getting to that point and Aubrey had congratulated him on it to an embarrassing degree at the end of one of their sessions, emphasising how important it was he have a good, working relationship with the panicked little thing that lived inside him and recognising when it was trying to trick him versus when it was trying to help him. And all it had taken to undo those months of hard work was half an hour stood constantly clapping like a prick amongst his so-called peers, an oversized disco ball that kept reflecting glare off his glasses, and what felt like about a hundred spotlights all shining directly into his eyes.

 _Something’s wrong_.

Of course, it could just be nothing. It could just be that he was here, on a set, for the first time in he didn’t want to _think_ about how long, and that was making him nervous. Being nervous was okay! Being nervous _was_ okay, wasn’t it? This was a big step for him, outside of the comfort zone and all that. Anathema wouldn’t steer him wrong; she’d said so, and he believed in her. Well, no, he _trusted_ her, which was worth a lot more in Crowley’s books than something as flimsy and changeable as belief. It was just that the lights were too bright, and he was sweating buckets under them cause he’d forgotten how roasting wearing all-black could be in a fully lit studio, and one of the other contestants—a chatty so-and-so, apparently an ex-nun who was now a Gogglebox regular—kept ruining takes because she wouldn’t stop squealing in excitement every single time the hosts started talking. 

"Oh dear, oh no, I’m so so sorry, it’s just that I’m so happy to be here, you see! Who would’ve thought, me, here, on the telly! I mean, I know I’ve been _on_ the telly before otherwise I wouldn’t be here but normally I’m just on the telly for eating biscuits and _watching_ telly, real actual telly with famous people in it, like you lot, and—"

And so on and so forth.

 _At least some of us are excited,_ Crowley thought, glancing over at Eve. When her partner had been announced out the gate her eyes had grown to the size of dinner plates, and from where Crowley was standing Eve considered Adam Goddard the whole meal. He’d come bounding down the stairs like an overexcited puppy and swept her into a massive hug, with Eve biting her lip and scrunching her nose happily at Crowley from over his broad shoulders. Crowley couldn’t help but laugh, saluting her with a tiny thumbs up— he gave it a week before they started shagging. As the show had progressed though, and more and more partners were announced, Eve’s wide eyes began to take on a troubled look. She kept trying to get Crowley’s attention without attracting the ire of the producers or causing a retake, but he couldn’t figure out what she was trying to say. When the hosts started up yet another very unfunny spiel with a load of terrible dancing puns in it, ensuring the attention of the cameras would be off them for the interminable length of time these skits usually lasted, she turned fully to Crowley and mouthed something he didn’t catch. She held up two fingers, widened her eyes even further, jerked her chin up to the top of the stairs. Crowley would normally have had no trouble figuring out frantic symbols thrown his way by exasperated women—both from being something of a gesticulater himself, and knowing Anathema as a human and colleague—but was only able to mouth _'You what?'_ at her in reply. He wasn’t trying to be thick, it was only that any signs of intelligent life that once resided in his head were now being drowned out by the voice that had graduated from quiet nagging into an ear-splitting howl.

_SOMETHING’S WRONG._

"Uh, pardon me Mr Crowley, sir, sorry but—"

"Oh, for— what now?!"

Another bloody runner. This was the third one that had bothered him, he was sure a fourth would be along any minute now. Whole gang of them, out to get him. They all looked about twelve years old and wouldn’t stop telling him off. It was doing nothing for his nerves or patience.

"Uh, it’s just that, your knee."

"What about it?"

"Well, actually, sir, it’s jiggling quite a bit."

"... jiggling."

"Yes. Jiggling."

The two of them looked down at the offending limb. It was jiggling away like anything.

"Huh."

"It’s just that I’ve been informed your partner is going to be announced soon and we can’t do a retake once that happens because it’ll be the end of the show, actually, so, if you could stop jiggling your knee until we’ve finished filming that would be much appreciated."

Crowley shot him the nastiest grin he could muster in an effort to get him to piss off.

"Will do."

The runner dashed off, past the endless empty chairs surrounding the dancefloor. Apparently the Beeb had decided that this season they were clamping down on leaks, and for that reason there wasn’t a live audience at the Launch Show. The Corporate Ken Doll running this thing who had walked them through the proceedings had given some weird excuses about it, explaining that they needed to 'protect the show at all costs' which was just a wild thing to say in Crowley’s opinion. He said they were filming from such angles that it wouldn’t be obvious no audience had been present, and they’d add in all the appropriate clapping and cheering later, so could you champs all just pretend like there was an audience there? It all seemed extremely micro-managerly to Crowley ( _did people care_ that much _about Strictly Come Dancing?_ ) but he hadn’t really dwelled on it until this very moment. Another professional’s name was shouted by the hosts, and she came down the stairs, shimmying her shoulders and kissing the cheek of the last man but Crowley. He was the only one left without a partner. 

It felt as if he were on trial. Everyone else on the stage seemed to take two steps back, leaving him entirely alone in the middle of the floor. The two hosts began to approach him, which they hadn’t done to any of the others. Crowley was trying not to lose himself to the panic, because he knew there was a very, _very_ obvious Question he wasn’t asking himself, and the only thing keeping the Question at bay was the last threads of his survival instincts. Panic wasn’t an option.

"So, here we are at last. Our final celeb standing is none other than Anthony J Crowley!" The host who was more fringe than face linked her arm with his, and he suddenly felt a little more moored in his physical body, bless this woman. "How are we feeling this fine evening?"

Was he going to have to do _unscripted banter_ in the middle of this complete and utter exercise in humiliation? 

"Oh, you know how it is. Normal Saturday night for me, making a tit of myself under a giant disco ball."

There was a millisecond pause where the hosts waited to hear in their earpieces if he’d ruined the take by saying ‘tit’. To be fair to Crowley, he was _trying_ to ruin the take by saying ‘tit’. They both burst into peals of laughter, though, clearly getting the green light to carry on.

"Yes, we’ve all been very excited to see you bust out those moves here on _Strictly_ ," said the one who always wore asymmetrical off-the-shoulder dresses and was, Crowley theorised, some sort of wooden puppet brought to life by a wish if the amount of charm and charisma she usually displayed was anything to go by. "But we’ve got a surprise up our sleeves for you, Anthony."

Crowley grimaced at the use of his first name.

"Must be a very small surprise, Jess, you’ve only got one sleeve on that thing to hide it up."

She made a sort of unimpressed, barking impression of laughter, and the one with the fringe hid a snort behind her hand.

"It’s quite a big surprise actually. You see, we here at _Strictly Come Dancing_ are always looking for ways to bring the ballroom scene into the modern world."

"That’s right, Claudine. Over the years we’ve added new dances, such as jazz, contemporary and, ever popular with the judges, street."

"Just as popular as a wobbly leg on a tight turn!"

They both laughed. Crowley would have made a mocking go of joining in, but he was attempting to not be sick. He’d let himself think about the Question. It could no longer be avoided, because Crowley knew The Answer. He was fit to burst with it (or he’d just overindulged on the champagne back there). There had been something wrong this whole time and he had been too distracted with just getting through it to take a step back and examine exactly what it was he was trying to get through. The one time he hadn’t asked all the uncomfortable questions beforehand, the one time he tucked his hands behind his back and was on his best behaviour and tried his hardest just to play nice for once, and look where it had left him. The Question was here, it would not be ignored, and it was this: 

_If everyone else is already partnered up, then where the hell is Aziraphale?_

"So when Jess and I got told about what the producers had planned for this season, we couldn’t have been more excited. I’m sure you’ve already guessed at what we have in store, considering you’re the only one left standing here and, well, everyone else has their partner! Though I remember your character in _Shakespearean_ wasn’t very good at maths so maybe you've not quite noticed that something here doesn’t add up!"

" _Please don’t do this, you don’t have to do this,_ " Crowley hissed softly, but he knew it was going to be edited out in post when Jess and Claudine both shot him faux-sympathetic, consummate professional smiles and carried right on, turning to walk away from him and address the central camera.

"This year, _Strictly Come Dancing_ is making history once again. We’ve broken world records, caused surges in the National Power Grid when everyone makes their cuppa at the end of the show, and now—"

"Anthony Crowley, please meet your partner—"

"In a _Strictly Come Dancing_ same-sex couple first—"

"Aziraphale Fell!"

The music must’ve been blaring because it had for every other announcement, but Crowley couldn’t hear it over the relentless pounding of his heartbeat, which had somehow climbed out of his chest and made its way to the general vicinity of his ears. He stood stock still, stage left, unable to turn and face the stairs to see who was coming down them. Maybe, if he didn’t look, it wouldn’t be real. Like Schröedinger’s Cat, only not at all like that because Crowley knew what he would find when he looked in the chamber, and it was very much alive and wearing pale blue wingtips. A dead cat would have been preferable. The other professionals and the celebrities around him were clapping, but it was slow, muted. They all looked shocked, mouths silently open (except the nun, who was squealing away like anything, and they _still weren’t stopping the take_ ). Eventually, Crowley registered a presence to his right. He turned on instinct, raising an eyebrow.

Fell’s smile looked genuine enough, like he was _simply delighted_ to be there, like he couldn’t be happier with this absolute cock up. His eyes, which Crowley found himself close enough to see properly, told a different story. They were the eyes of a man who wanted to set the world on fire.

"Shake my hand."

Fell’s voice was quiet so it wouldn’t be picked up over the din of the music, and soft—almost as soft as the hand he held out in front of him looked—but it had an edge of steel to it.

"Just shake my hand, finish the take and we’ll sort all this out in a jiffy."

Crowley swallowed and heard his throat click. He was a professional. He could do this. He reached out and grabbed Aziraphale Fell’s hand, shaking it with a bit more roughness than was probably kind but, well. He had a lot of nervous energy to dispel, and Fell was the one who wanted them to do a bloody handshake and act all civilised rather than tearing the place to the ground.

"And there you have it, people!" 

Claudine and Jess were back. _Oh, goody_. Crowley had actually _liked_ Claudine, he’d been interviewed by her back in the good old days and they’d had a decent enough time of it. They’d even chatted a bit backstage before shooting started, reminiscing on times gone by. He thought they were friendly enough that she might’ve given him a little _warning_ he was about to be turned into this year’s _Strictly_ laughingstock. He glared at the back of her head, remembering how comforting he’d found her arm linked in his not even a full five minutes ago, and thought _et tu, Brute?_

"That’s all fifteen couples, partnered up and raring to go! Who’ll waltz on home with the Glitterball, and who will quickstep their way out of the competition? That’s up to the judges, and you, the voting public!"

"So tune in next week to see how our professionals are faring with taking these celebrity ducklings and turning them into swan princes and princesses!"

"We’ll see you then, and remember—"

A hand slid around Crowley’s back, making him jump out of his skin.

"The fuck?!"

Fell’s hold on him tightened, pulling him flush to his chest and changed their handshake to a handhold, his right in Crowley’s left, thrusting their joined arms out in a long line in front of them towards the cameras. Crowley was too shocked to fight him off. The man had clearly lost his mind. Then everyone but Crowley intoned together, as though in some sort of sequin-based cult:

"Keep dancing!"

All the other couples had adopted the same pose Fell had arranged them into, and were swaying weirdly back and forth on the spot in facsimiles of a waltz, smiling widely at the central cameras. _He_ was being swayed— Fell rocked them to and fro, his surprisingly solid torso like the wide bow of a ship buffeted by a storm and Crowley was strapped to it, a reluctant figurehead. He wondered if it would be worth the trouble he’d get in letting his nausea overtake him and emptying the contents of the Green Room catering table all over Fell’s vintage woollen blazer.

"Aaaaaand that’s a wrap on Launch! Great work everyone! We nailed it!"

The showrunner was back, looking down on all of them from the top of the dual staircases. Crowley had half a mind to fly up there and punch his lights out. Fell, gratifyingly, looked as though he was having the exact same thought and let go of his iron grip on Crowley to turn his gaze upwards.

"Gabriel, if I could just take a moment of your time—"

"No can do, Az. We’ve gotta edit this baby down to a tight thirty, and some people are just determined to make my job that little bit harder. Speaking of— don’t think I didn’t catch that blip of yours, Tony."

It took Crowley a ridiculously long time to realise he was being referred to, because nobody— _nobody—_ called him Tony. There was nothing about him that suggested he would ever wish to go by _Tony_ , and if there ever had been he would have gotten Anathema to tell him what it was so that he could immediately change it.

"... me?"

"You, Tony. This is the BBC! I know this was a shock to the ol’ system, but no more fucks, alright? No more tits, either. I don’t like to give anyone a hard time but my hands are tied on this— swearing on the show is the Big One. Don’t make me have to punish you."

 _I was under the impression I’d already been punished,_ Crowley thought, miserably.

"Gabriel, really, I must insist—"

"Hey. Aziraphale?" The smile Gabriel had pasted on his face wore thinner with each word he spoke. "Remember our chat from this morning? Our one-on-one backstage just now? I thought you were on board. You gave me your word, and what is a man without his word? Nothing, Az. Not a damn thing. So you’re gonna just have to suck it up, suck it in, and do your job. Can you do that for me, Az? Can you manage to do your job? For the sake of the show? For the sake of the family?"

Crowley watched a very impressive number of expressions cross Fell’s face before it settled on a small smile and a tight nod, all without looking up or meeting Gabriel’s eyes. Anyone else might have mistaken it for fear, or timidity, but Crowley could see from his vantage point at Fell’s side the sharp rage tucked into the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. He weirdly felt a little sorry for Gabriel, because those wrinkles said this conversation was _far_ from over and he had a feeling Fell was a force to be reckoned with.

The celebrities and their dancers were pulled aside one by one to film the ‘initial reaction’ interviews that would play over the credits of the show when it aired in a few weeks time, and honestly by this point they were all probably grateful to get out of the range of drama ground zero and do something as banal as reaction shots. Crowley and Fell were left alone for the moment, standing silently side by side on the stage and watching Adam and Eve make playful faces at each other in plain view of the central cameras. Fell’s eyes quickly darted to him before firmly settling back on the other contestants, and it was obvious Crowley would have to be the one to break the tension of the moment. Crowley tried to think of something to say. Fell was clearly willing to play by the rules here for his own personal reasons, and Crowley couldn’t help but feel the heavy weight of a past conversation, on a stage just like this one, threatening to suffocate them both. _Say something— say something clever, say something comforting, say something angry, just say_ something.

"Well," he eventually said, "That one went down like a lead balloon."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello from your showrunners, mort & marginalia. mort can be found [here](http://www.twitter.com/mortifyingideal), marginalia can’t be found anywhere but here on AO3! 
> 
> as the summary says, updates every saturday @ 7PM (GMT) 
> 
> this fic is our love letter to the show, the fandom (so watch out for a few potential references to our favourite fanworks) and, of course, the ineffable idiots. we hope you enjoy, perhaps with a glass of much-maligned crémant and a canapé or two.


	2. Week One — The Cha Cha Cha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **7.00pm** — A partnership has been formed, for better or worse, and so far? It’s firmly on the side of worse. A professional butts heads with upper management, a Madame makes her official grand entrance, and a manager-slash-agent-slash-social-media-guru begins to hatch a plan.

* * *

_TWENTY SEVEN DAYS UNTIL THE FIRST LIVE SHOW_

* * *

Considering how green around the gills Crowley had looked at Launch, Aziraphale wouldn’t have been surprised to find himself without a partner by the time their introductory rehearsal rolled around the next day. It would have solved a number of problems, to be perfectly honest, and he had to squash a momentary rush of disappointment when Crowley stumbled into their designated studio ten minutes late with a coffee the size of his head.

“Overslept,” he explained, which wasn’t an apology, and did nothing to endear him to Aziraphale whatsoever. 

“It’s alright,” he lied. Then, “How are you feeling?”

Crowley’s face moved through several different expressions simultaneously, all of which were resoundingly negative. “Great,” he said. 

“Well, I am delighted to be working with you,” said Aziraphale staunchly. Crowley snorted.

“I’m not,” he said. “But I am here to work, so.”

Aziraphale eyed him doubtfully. He was wearing a t-shirt, sunglasses, and _skinny jeans_ , of all things, none of which communicated _here to work_ to Aziraphale. Perhaps he had been foolish to expect Crowley to take this seriously, given the man's track record. Any lingering hope he had of getting at least halfway through the competition vanished. 

“Grand. Do you have anything to change into?” he asked, attempting politeness in the face of his own despair.

Crowley cocked his head to the side. “Why would I need to change?” he asked.

“It’s, ah. It can be rather uncomfortable, dancing in jeans.”

Crowley shifted. Aziraphale could have sworn he heard an audible creak.

“I manage alright normally.”

“I’m assuming that normally you’re, well, gyrating in a club somewhere,” Aziraphale said, primly. “You might have a bit more trouble doing a _gancho_ in denim.”

Crowley blinked, or at least, Aziraphale assumed he blinked behind those ridiculous sunglasses. “Hang on, you’re not going to have me doing the splits or something, are you?”

“Oh no! I wouldn’t dream of it. The idea is to progress in difficulty as the competition goes on, yes, but I would never try to push you into doing something your body is incapable of.”

Except this was the wrong thing to say, apparently, because Crowley folded his arms and scowled. “I could do the splits,” he said. “If I really put my mind to it.”

“Perhaps so. Regardless—”

“I could,” Crowley insisted. “Always been bendy, me.”

“Well, off you go, then,” snapped Aziraphale. 

There was a moment of tense silence. 

“Not going to do it right now,” muttered Crowley, shifting in place. “Not a performing monkey, am I.”

A capital start. A _tremendous_ start. The next few weeks would be torture.

Aziraphale sighed. “I hate to disillusion you, dear boy, but for as long as we remain in the competition, we are both performing monkeys.” He took off his jacket, and started plugging in his battered old CD player. When he looked up again, Crowley seemed to have softened, slightly; maybe even looked a little sheepish. Or maybe it was his imagination. It was hard to work out Crowley's expression with those things on his face. That wouldn’t do. 

“Are you going to take off your sunglasses?”

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

“I shall put it another way. I need you to take off your sunglasses.”

“Why?” 

This was like pulling teeth. “Because dancing requires communication. Physical communication, I mean. Eye contact is a large part of it, and the judges will mark us on whether you're looking at me or glaring over my shoulder.”

Crowley hesitated, and Aziraphale had one of the rare flashes of empathetic insight that caused the core of his character to be so radically misinterpreted. Crowley was uncomfortable, and out of his depth, and perhaps even scared. Had he been anyone else, Aziraphale would have been glad to sit down with a cup of tea and attempt to talk things through. But Aziraphale was petty, and Aziraphale bore grudges, and Crowley wasn’t just anyone else. Aziraphale didn’t have the time nor the inclination to help him through his no doubt considerable issues. It wasn’t his job. 

And yet, if he didn’t make more of an effort to connect, they would never get anywhere.

He held out his hand.

“Sunglasses,” he said.

“I don’t really like taking them off,” said Crowley. 

“Trust is a part of it, too. Sunglasses.”

Crowley sighed. He took the sunglasses off, folded them, and dropped them neatly in Aziraphale’s outstretched palm. Then he looked at him.

Oh, thought Aziraphale. He had rather nice eyes, actually. Sort of a golden syrup colour. Lovely, even if they were narrowed suspiciously in his direction. 

Aziraphale smiled. He tucked Crowley’s glasses into his breast pocket, where they would stay until rehearsals were over. Crowley’s eyes followed the movement, one eyebrow quirked.

“There, that’s better,” said Aziraphale. “Now we can get to work.”

***

Aziraphale, Crowley soon realised, was a bastard.

An hour later and he was sweaty, disheveled, disoriented, and knew as much about dancing as he had before they started. His jeans were stuck fast to his thighs and chafing like hell, but he wasn’t about to let on— Aziraphale might be _smug_ about it, and Crowley couldn’t handle any further humiliation.

“Alright,” Aziraphale said cheerily. “Let’s have another go. Remember, all we’re trying to do is get used to moving in tandem, hm? You can look at your feet for this bit, if it helps.”

It didn’t help. Crowley could remember the steps, that part was fine. It was the moving in tandem bit that got him. Aziraphale had informed him bluntly that there would be lifts in the later stages of the competition, and since Crowley looked like he weighed about nine pounds soaking wet, he’d be dancing the girl’s bit. He’d have to grow out his hair. Maybe he could tie it in a ponytail, twat Aziraphale in the face.

“It’s lucky, in a way,” said Aziraphale. “If you had been partnered with one of our young ladies, you would have had to learn the steps _and_ look like you were doing the steering. I imagine that’s quite difficult— ah, relax your shoulders, there’s a boy.”

Crowley tried, he really did, but his body was fighting him every step of the way. He could feel Aziraphale getting frustrated, but all the time the other man was hiding it under a veneer of calm and patience, like icing on a grenade. It made Crowley want to pull the pin, get him to blow up and admit that he hated the situation as much as Crowley.

“Try to keep your hips a little more, ah, in line,” Aziraphale said. Crowley flushed. He was trying, but somewhere between his brain and his pelvis the signal got lost, and he ended up wiggling like one of those hula dancers people stick on their dashboard. 

“Just putting a little pepper on it,” he said, through gritted teeth.

“It doesn’t _need_ any pepper on it, it’s a _waltz_.”

They soldiered on. It was possibly the grimmest rehearsal Crowley had ever been in. He could feel his face adopting that dead-eyed, resigned look you see on the face of straight men dancing at weddings. Aziraphale’s jaw was tight.

“Alright, we’re getting there. Just _relax_ your shoulders, try and feel where the beat is, and—”

“Oh, bugger this,” Crowley said finally. He dropped his hands from Aziraphale’s shoulders and backed right out of his space. “This isn’t going to work.”

“It can work,” Aziraphale said flatly. It infuriated Crowley.

“Have you ever even danced with another man, before?” he snapped. 

Aziraphale smiled, but it was a chilly thing. “Many, many times,” he said calmly, “Although not on _Strictly_ , no. I imagine that was why they paired us.”

“You know damn well why they paired us,” hissed Crowley, and the temperature in the studio dropped another several degrees. 

“I do,” said Aziraphale finally. “But while they may have intended for us to be a gimmick, I am telling you that we don’t _have to be_ one. If you can swallow your pride and let me actually teach you rather than having a, a _tantrum_ at the first sign of difficulty—”

“ _A tantrum!_ ”

“Then we might actually be able to salvage something from this farce—”

“AH! Aha! So you admit it’s a farce, then!” Crowley waggled a victorious finger at Aziraphale’s face.

 _“Yes!_ ” shouted Aziraphale, finally. _Boom_. He threw up his hands, and Crowley was gratified to see that smug professionalism crack right down the middle. “Yes, it is a farce, and I am livid that we have been put in this position, but I am still trying to do my job, something which you are making far, far harder than it needs to be!”

“Right, well then, you can have a word with your lot upstairs, can’t you.” 

Aziraphale moved back into Crowley’s space, and Crowley was embarrassed to find himself retreating a step. What did he think Aziraphale was going to do, hit him? Like they were two blokes settling a row outside a pub? But Aziraphale reached into his pocket and pulled out Crowley’s sunglasses, slapping them into Crowley's open palm.

“Rest assured that I shall,” said Aziraphale, coldly.

“Good.”

“We also have a wardrobe fitting tomorrow. Perhaps we can discuss this further then?”

“Fine,” snapped Crowley.

“Fine.”

 _“Fine,_ ” Crowley said, in a voice that was definitely not a childish mimicry of Aziraphale’s. Then he crammed his glasses on his face and stormed out of the studio.

* * *

Aziraphale called Gabriel immediately after rehearsal. When the call went unanswered he went directly to his favourite bakery and then directly home to sulk. Aziraphale rarely indulged in a good sulk, but when he really got going he could make one last for several days. He usually put on a Rodgers & Hammerstein film and slipped into a fugue state. He was impressed that he managed to pull himself out of this one by morning, although he gazed at the wreckage of the cream puffs he had bought like a man checking the damage he had done to his flat whilst drunk. 

Gabriel still had not called him back, nor had he answered any of the three emails (his politeness in each inversely proportional to his fury) he had sent the previous day. Eventually, Aziraphale dressed, went to the _Strictly_ lot, announced “I’m thinking of contacting HR” loudly into the ear of the nearest member of staff, and got a call ten minutes later.

“Aziraphale! Been trying to get you on the horn all day, buddy. Listen, are you free for a little _tête-à-tête_ Upstairs? Today? Say, in the next five minutes? Actually, no, let’s make that ten, give us all time to get coffee, or tea, what do you say? Excellent, see you then.”

Aziraphale did get a tea, and made it to the conference room three minutes early, and still found himself the last to arrive. Gabriel, Uriel and Sandalphon were already present, chatting over coffee. They hushed when he came in.

“Aziraphale, have a seat,” said Sandalphon. 

Aziraphale cursed inwardly. His threat of calling HR had been an empty one, as he didn’t like to deal with Sandalphon any more than was strictly necessary. He was what a man with less tact and politeness than Aziraphale might have called a creep.

“Gabriel tells me you wanted to express some concerns,” he said softly, with a gently sympathetic expression that was as cloying as it was insincere. “I’m sorry to hear that. Is there something you want to bring up with us?”

“Yes,” said Aziraphale. He folded his hands neatly on his lap, and made sure to look all three of them in the eye, one after the other. Aziraphale had read a book on projecting confidence and assertion through body language in the early nineties, and had taken it as gospel. “I’ll just dive right in, then. You see, Anthony Crowley and I will be the first pair of male dancers to compete in the show’s long and storied history.”

Gabriel sipped his coffee. “We know, Az,” he said. “Kinda the point.”

Sandalphon leaned forward. “Are you raising a personal objection, Aziraphale?”

“I am not,” said Aziraphale firmly. He had expected this question, disingenuous though it was. “I have had a long career in dance, and in that time I have had any number of partners. I have no personal preference as to their gender whatsoever, provided they put in the work.”

“So you have a problem with Anthony? Anthony’s great!” Gabriel gestured around the room. “We all love Tony, here, right, guys?”

“Oh, yes. Big fans,” said Sandalphon, beaming. Uriel gave a single, curt nod. 

“My objection—well, it’s not an objection, really, more of a concern—and it isn’t about Anthony, erm, Crowley, either,” stammered Aziraphale. He was losing the upper hand, he felt. He had a slight tickle over his left ear and he was desperate to brush it away, but the book had been very clear that touching one’s face communicated a lack of conviction. “My primary concern is safeguarding.”

Sandalphon blinked.

“Safeguarding?”

“Yes. A same-sex couple, even in a professional context, on a nationally beloved show— that will bring a great deal of attention from the media, and from viewers.”

“Again, that’s the _point_ ,” said Gabriel.

“We are trying to redress imbalances in representation across the BBC’s programming,” said Sandalphon, in what was clearly a memorised line. “The BBC is committed to reflecting the changing face of our nation through initiatives that promote Equality and Diversity.”

“We’re the good guys!” summarized Gabriel.

“Yes, and this is all, ah, commendable,” Aziraphale ploughed on, “but it does come with a human cost. Crowley and I will bear the brunt of this attention, and whatever backlash may arise from certain quarters.”

“Crowley agreed to come on this show precisely _for_ that attention,” pointed out Gabriel. “All the contestants did. I think you painting him as a babe in the woods is kind of unfair."

“Yes, but— what I am saying is that the decision to be the, the _test case_ in this matter should have been ours,” said Aziraphale. “We should have been given adequate time to prepare, along with our agents and publicists, and to discuss whether we wanted that kind of attention. As it is, we have been dropped into a potentially volatile situation without so much as a by-your-leave, and I can’t help but feel a little bit put out!” he had lost the gravitas at the end a bit, he felt. “I have had a discussion with Anthony Crowley, and he feels similarly…” he searched for a better phrase than _‘put out’_ , “...vexed. I wouldn’t be surprised if he contacted his legal team—”

“Oh, woah, and there’s the L-word!” Gabriel held up his hands in surrender. “I’m gonna have to refer you to our legal representation, here.” He gestured to his left.

Uriel, who until now had remained utterly silent and impassive, blinked slowly. “I can go over the contracts signed both by yourself and Mr. Crowley, if you like,” she said smoothly. “I appreciate your concern as to our legal situation, but I assure you it’s all above board. If Mr. Crowley does wish to raise any formal concerns, his agent has the number for my team, and we would be happy to discuss this with him.” She smiled. It was not a nice smile. “But you’re right, Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale started. “I am?” He really wanted to scratch his ear.

“Yes. In fact, we would like to formally express our regret as to the handling of this situation, and offer our sincerest apologies. A note expressing this is being drafted as we speak.”

"A note."

“Yes, and the sentiment is echoed by the HR department,” added Sandalphon. “We’re, ah, sorry.”

Gabriel clapped his hands. “There you are!” he said. “A formal apology. Now, moving forward— is there anything else, Aziraphale?”

“Actually—” he began.

“Because I just wanna make clear— you can back out at any time. There’s still two weeks until we air the Launch episode, get this show officially on the road. If, between now and then, you or Tony decide you’re not up for it? That’s fine. Totally okay. We’ve got a couple other potential candidates waiting in the wings for situations like this. They’d be happy to take over.” Gabriel’s smile looked like it chewed up seals for fun. “You know, if you're looking to recontextualise your career at this juncture.”

It was at this point that Aziraphale realised how thoroughly and expertly he had been out-manoeuvered. 

He smiled tightly. 

“No, that’s quite alright. I just needed a little clarity, that’s all.” 

“No problem, glad we’re all finally on the same page. Sandalphon said something amazing to me the other day, you just gotta hear this— what was it again, Sandalphon?”

Sandalphon grinned in a way that made Aziraphale think he must have only learned how to perform this basic human expression very recently, and hadn’t quite got the hang of it yet.

“Teamwork makes the dream work.”

“How about that, Aziraphale,” Gabriel rose and everyone else in the room rose with him. “If that doesn’t make you wanna get out there and put on your dancing shoes, I don’t know what will. Speaking of, I hear you’ve got a fitting right about now! Wouldn’t wanna keep you from that. I know you and Tracy are such old friends.”

They left the conference room practically in lockstep. Sandalphon waggled his fingers on the way out. 

Aziraphale gave his ear a good scratch.

* * *

Crowley couldn’t even get through a single cig before she found him hiding round the back of the studio, like he was fifteen again and skiving off R.E. lessons.

“Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere?”

Crowley took a final long drag before flicking the butt to the ground and twisting his heel on it in a perversion of one of the moves Aziraphale had attempted to show him yesterday.

“Can’t a man survey the final tattered shreds of his dignity in peace, Anathema?”

She rolled her eyes and linked his arm in hers, which probably looked friendly enough to the outside eye but felt reminiscent of handcuffs clamping down on his wrists. 

“It’s not going to be that bad. I’ve heard good things about the woman who runs costume, you’re going to like her.”

“Oh yeah? That one of your _sixth sense_ things, is it?” Crowley sneered, allowing himself to be dragged back inside and through the corridors of the Beeb.

“No, it’s an order from your manager. You’re _going_ to like her and you’re _going_ to be professional about this, Crowley.”

“Why should I?”

“Because for the next three months this woman is going to have total control over what you wear, and it’s probably not wise to piss off a person with that kind of power over you.”

She had a point, but he was never going to concede aloud. He scrunched his nose and wriggled his head a bit to let her know that he could win this argument if he really wanted to, thank you very much, he just wasn’t bothered at this particular moment in time, but she’d stopped paying attention to him. The door to Costume was bright pink, and soft strains of music could be heard floating from within. In place of the studio’s usual vinyl signage was a framed cross-stitch, announcing that you were now darkening the doorway of:

**MADAME TRACY**  
COSTUME & WARDROBE

xXx  
AVAILABLE FOR STRICTLY COSTUMING & INTIMATE MEASUREMENTS  
xXx

~ EVERY EVENING ~

( _except Thursdays_ )

“What do you suppose she does on Thursdays?” Crowley asked.

“Let’s find out,” Anathema replied, rapping sharply on the door.

When the door opened, Crowley and Anathema found themselves face to face with a woman who couldn’t possibly go by anything other than ‘Madame Tracy’. Never mind working for the costume department— she _looked_ like a living, breathing costume department, all drapey veils and big garish jewellery and a wig so bright orange it made Crowley feel positively mousy in comparison. She trilled a delighted little sigh to see them, ushering them both across the threshold.

“Come in, my dears, come in! Catch your death standing out there,” she fussed, as though they were Victorian children on their maiden aunt’s doorstep and not two adults stood in a heated studio lot. The inside of the costume department was just as chaotic and chintzy as the embroidered sign on the door would have suggested— more like a set for a Noël Coward play than a working studio, in Crowley’s opinion. Comfortable looking _chaise longues_ in deep orange velvets dotted the deep green far wall of the room, a glass-topped coffee table stacked high with fashion magazines and huge Taschen books atop it resting between them. The soft music came from an old-school trumpeted gramophone plonked on top of a repurposed cocktail trolley, Sinatra lilting his way out of its horn. Several chandeliers with exposed orange and yellowed bulbs suffused the place in a homely glow. The only points of harsh light were atop the various sewing stations lining the left hand side of the room, and the single huge work table that accompanied them. On the right, rack after rack of costumes, all in various stages of completion and in varying different colours, stretched away into presumable infinity. The walls were crowded with shelving units full of rolls of fabric, drawers labelled ‘SEQUINS’, ‘SEQUINS: II’ and ‘LOOK THERE’S A 90% CHANCE IT’LL BE SEQUINS SO STOP ASKING’. In the middle of the room, on top of an uneven jumble of mismatched rugs, stood several mannequins arranged around a little plinth, and there was a small circle of odd shaped mirrors—some with gilt gold frames, some bare ovals, some obvious IKEA jobs—propped up against various surfaces to face this little altar of costuming. 

_How the hell does the Beeb afford this,_ Crowley thought, _and is it too late to renegotiate my appearance fee?_

The proprietress, having fully led them into the heart of her sanctum, surveyed them both from atop the central plinth.

“I’m Madame Tracy, Head of Costume, but I suspect you already knew that. You must be Miss Anathema.”

Anathema seemed surprised to be addressed first, but smiled politely and held her hand up for Tracy to shake.

“How do you do?”

“Oh, very well, love. It’s wonderful to finally meet you. I knew your grandmother, you know,” she winked. “You look just like her.”

“You knew Agnes?”

“Course I did! Don’t work in this industry for as long as I have without getting around a bit, if you know what I mean, and me and Agnes certainly got around a bit.”

Anathema looked like she _hoped_ she didn’t know what Tracy meant, because there were things one just didn’t wish to discover about their family’s personal life. 

“Right. Well. I. Um— have you met my client? This is—”

“Mister Crowley! Oh yes, I know all about him,” Tracy swivelled. “You’ve caused quite a stir around here already.”

Crowley plastered on his best smile. Right. Small talk. Be nice. He could be nice. Or, at the very least, he could be charming enough that people wouldn’t immediately clock on that he wasn’t especially _good_ at nice.

“Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been accused of that,” he held out his hand as Anathema had done, but when Tracy took it she forwent the usual professional shake and instead used it to yank him up to meet her on the platform. It took what appeared to be embarrassingly little effort on her part. Crowley refused to blush as Anathema snorted into her hand and turned away.

“Ooh you _are_ a bit of nothing, aren’t you? Skin and bones!" Tracy tutted, picking up the glasses that hung around her neck and examining him from up close through them. The lenses made her eyes look comically owlish. She stepped off the platform and back a little bit to leave him stranded up there by himself.

"Go on then love, do us a twirl. Let Madame Tracy see what she’s got to work with."

Crowley glared at Anathema until she threw up her hands in surrender and wandered off to explore the costume racks and, probably, discover Narnia. He slowly spun in place under Tracy’s direction, arms out to the side, above his head, legs going this way and that— he’d been fitted for costume before, of course, but he’d never needed to pose like this while doing so. Aziraphale’s pointed comments about his clothes came back to him as he struggled to follow Tracy’s instructions to stretch his denim-clad legs so each foot reached the opposite edge of the plinth.

"Question," he said, from behind gritted teeth.

"Go ahead dear," Tracy replied, distractedly. She had whipped out a notebook in the last few moments and was scribbling frantically in it. She hadn’t come near him with a measuring tape yet, but her eyes kept darting up and then back down so she had to be doing _something_ measurement-y.

"Might be a bit cheeky of me."

"I quite like cheeky, probably won’t shock you to hear."

"Well. I just wondered. I mean, if it wasn’t too much trouble. I had hoped you might have some recommendations for, uh. Clothes."

Madame Tracy stopped and looked at him blankly for a few moments.

"I— Mister Crowley, you do know this is the _costume_ department, yes? I’ve not just got you doing pirouettes for giggles."

"No, no, I mean yes, I know, that just. Wasn’t quite what I meant," he said, running a hand back through his hair. "What I _meant_ was clothes for rehearsing in. I know you’re busy doing all—" he waved his hands around, "—all _this_ but I don’t really have the first clue where one goes about buying clothes you can do this sort of thing in. Apparently my personal style is much more suited to, what was it? _Gyrating in a club,_ whatever the hell that means."

Madame Tracy, to his endless relief, smiled softly at him rather than telling him to piss off. 

"I see your rehearsals with Mister Aziraphale are coming along nicely. Not to worry, love, It’s not all that hard to find something better than jeans to dance in. I’ll write you out a nice list, you’ll be kitted out proper in no time."

"Can _this_ be on the list?" 

Anathema’s voice broke the spell of calm that Madame Tracy’s gentle assurance had woven around Crowley, and he turned to see her holding up a _very_ risqué little number. Granted it was definitely in his colours, but he hadn’t shown that much skin on screen since— well. Since he was a much younger man who didn’t feel so bloody delicate about it all, alright, let’s leave it at that.

"Fuck off, Anathema."

"No way, I am _not_ leaving this room until I see you trying this on and then letting me take several photos for future blackmail material."

"Anathema, I’m warning you—"

"You know you wanna try it!"

" _Anathema._ "

Madame Tracy cleared her throat like a clap of thunder.

"Well, Miss Anathema, not that it hasn’t been splendid to have you in here, but we’re about to get to the intimate measurements section of the session and my process is such that I can’t have anyone else flitting about while I do that bit."

Anathema looked as though she was going to protest, it wasn’t like she hadn’t seen most of it before in a professional capacity _anyway_ , but after a quick look from Crowley’s desperate face to Tracy’s stern one she nodded, replaced the hanger back on its rack and made her excuses to wait outside. Crowley blew out a long breath, cheeks slowly deflating.

"Thanks."

"Don’t mention it. Now, clobber off for me, there’s a love."

Crowley did not squawk, because that was not the kind of thing Anthony J. Crowley liked to think himself capable of doing. Madame Tracy rolled her eyes anyway, as though _someone_ in the room might have done something comparable to squawking, and pulled a few measuring tapes out of the folds in the endless amount of drapery that made up her outfit.

"It’s only a body, dearie. Nothing to be ashamed of and, if I’m being perfectly honest, nothing I’m not already familiar with," she said, the twinkle in her eye magnified by her specs. "The minute I knew you were going to be on the show I went back and watched all your old films again. I do it with all the celebs, helps me get a picture of them in my mind’s eye before I even touch my needle and thread. Though I have to say, getting to go back and watch some of your more _under-appreciated_ roles gave me a lot more to work with than I usually get."

Crowley, despite the small wiggle of dread in his stomach, laughed.

"Oh, Christ, don’t tell me you’ve watched the unrated version of—"

" _Saunter Down the Aisle,_ Mister C, right you are."

"It was the early noughties, if I can just defend myself for a moment," Crowley started to strip, dumping his clothes to the floor on the side of the plinth. "Everyone was doing casual nudity in romcoms. Helped DVD sales go through the roof."

One by one, the layers of Crowley’s visual identity fell to the wayside. Madame Tracy bundled each item away and hung them up, safely delivered to the rack Anathema had gotten the saucy outfit from. Oddly, Crowley didn’t feel half as naked standing up here being scrutinised in nothing but his tight-fitting Derek Rose’s than he had when Aziraphale had confiscated his sunglasses the night before. At least Madame Tracy wasn’t making him take those off too.

"Yes, all this’ll have to go for the time being, can’t be mucking about in rehearsals wearing this sort of gear. Nothing worse than denim-burn on the thighs, which I can see you’ve already discovered for yourself, and this jacket! A lovely cut, but far too tight for the kind of movement you’re going to need. Now, I’ve got a few outfits already made up for you that I want to try on to get your fit right, and I’ll start talking you through what outfit is going to go with what song and what dance and— hang on. Why isn’t Mister Aziraphale with you?"

Crowley raised his eyebrow.

"How the hell should I know? We aren’t chained at the hip."

"He’s _meant_ to be here," Madame Tracy sighed, grabbing several hangers off the rack and bringing them over to where he stood. "What with the Powers That Be keeping a tight lid on all this surprise pairing stuff, I originally started making clothes for you with the idea that you’d have a different partner. I’ll have to make a lot of adjustments— Mister Aziraphale’s partners require a _special_ touch. He’s very particular about costume."

"What, Aziraphale? _Particular_ about something? Colour me shocked," Crowley drawled.

Tracy threw her head back in laughter and swatted his arm in the exact same way Anathema would have done.

"Oh Mister C, you are terrible!"

 _Ah fuck,_ Crowley thought to himself, _Anathema was right. I_ do _like her._

* * *

After that complete disaster of a meeting with the Higher Ups, Aziraphale gave himself some time to mentally recoup before the afternoon’s appointments. He had intended to go to his favourite little bakery-cum-coffee-shop for the second day running, as it was just a brief walk away from the studios, but upon arrival found it closed for a staff training day. Not to be deterred, he marched to the second-best choice only to find that it had shut down and been replaced by a store called ‘Holy Water’ that sold something called _vape juice_. Aziraphale didn’t even bother going in— he was not a child and so did not want to drink juice, thank you very much. Was it really so much to ask for a good strong cup of tea? Apparently so, because in the end he was reduced to queuing and paying for the absolute swill served from the little coffee cart just outside the studio entrance. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and unfortunately for Aziraphale _desperation_ was all he could taste in his very weak cuppa— it was _Twinings_ , for Heaven’s sake. After all that trouble and fuss he found himself no less furious, no more caffeinated, and extremely late for Crowley’s first costume fitting. Tracy would have his hide. 

"You’re late."

Sprawled on the floor outside the Costume Department was a young woman he didn’t recognise at all. Her skirts pooled about her in various frilly layers, and she was twisted to one side, her phone tilted at an odd angle so that she could see it from her contorted position. She had not looked up at him. Aziraphale decided that whoever she was, she was _very_ rude. 

"I don’t quite see how that’s any of your concern."

"If you’d been here when you were supposed to be, Mr Fell, you’d know that it’s entirely _my concern_."

He took her in once more, let his eyes dart towards the door of costume, and managed to put two and two together quite quickly.

"You seem to have me at something of a disadvantage, my dear girl," he said, in a way that implied he didn’t find anything dear about her at all. "You know my name, but I’m afraid I’ve not had the pleasure of yours."

The woman rolled to her feet in a practiced fluid movement that had Aziraphale, for a split second, wishing he could have been partnered with her instead of the disarray of limbs and angles waiting for him through the door to costume. She held out a hand, finally tucking her phone away in a hidden pocket to her skirt.

"Anathema Device. I’m Crowley’s person."

"Yes, I realised you must be his— sorry, his _person_?"

"Well, I’m technically his manager, but I’m also his agent. And his publicist. And his dietician. Oh, and I chart his horoscope, but he doesn’t pay me for that, even though he should. I’m very accurate."

Aziraphale found himself shaking her hand for a touch too long as he attempted to take in this plethora of information. There was no earthly way one person could handle all that, even for someone who had been work-shy for as long as Crowley had. He assumed she must have been making a joke at some point along the way that he just wasn’t _with it_ enough to get, and so he laughed. Anathema’s eyes immediately narrowed, and she withdrew her hand from his grasp. The phone came back out, and she turned her attention down to it. 

Ah. Excellent. He had offended her. Of course he had— with the way this day was turning out, how could he have done anything else?

"I think we’ve rather got off on the wrong f— hold on a moment. _Device_ , you said."

She nodded.

"As in _Device & Descendants?_"

Again, a nod.

 _Well that’s just not fair_ , Aziraphale thought, _how can it possibly be that a young woman from such an exemplary agency is representing a man like Anthony Crowley?_

Luckily for Aziraphale he had enough of his wits about him to not ask this question aloud and, when he really thought about it, it actually made perfect sense that this particular Device was representing Crowley. 

"I met your grandmother, once," he said, in an attempt to redirect the conversation to something approaching friendliness.

"Please tell me you, her and the Madame in there weren’t _getting around_ together."

"No! No. Definitely not. I knew her in quite a different, ah, _capacity_ to Madame Tracy, shall we say. I actually asked your grandmother to represent me."

"Ah."

"I was so desperate to make a decent first impression, I wanted terribly to be managed by her. Came across her in a bookshop and talked her ear off, but I don’t believe she was listening. Can’t blame her, I do tend to ramble when nervous— dreadful habit.”

“You don’t say.”

“After that I tried to contact her through various channels but she was just impossible to get a hold of.” 

She had eventually gotten in touch to decline his request. Aziraphale had received a fair number of rejections in his professional life, but it was the first and last time he was rejected via _telegram_. He still had it, tucked away in his keepsake drawer at home.

"Do you have Twitter?"

He was rudely dragged back to the present by Anathema’s non-sequitur. She didn’t appear to have paid him one iota of attention as he almost spilled his heart out to her right here on the laminate BBC flooring. 

"Twitter?"

"I can find loads of news articles about you having a Twitter account, Wayback records and stuff, so I know you know what it is, but I can’t find you on there now. Do you not have one?"

He swallowed, hoping she hadn’t actually _read_ any of those articles.

"No, I, ah— that is, I deleted it. Far too much hassle, you know. I never was very good with technology."

"I just need to know how prepared you are for the social media shitstorm that's gonna hit when Launch airs, so I can plan Crowley’s strategy accordingly."

"I’ll be steering well clear of all that, trust me."

Anathema looked up at him again, and he found himself immediately wishing she hadn’t. No wonder Crowley was such a bundle of nerves, if he was regularly privy to this sort of soul-piercing glare.

"I don’t know if I _can_ trust you, Mr Fell. Frankly, I don’t trust anyone in this whole goddamned building right now besides myself and my client. I thought the British were meant to be above all this sensationalist reality show _bullshit_. Pulling a stunt like this when Crowley— when my client has been through what he has, without even a hint of fair warning? Is not, in my books, particularly worthy of trust, and it sure as hell isn’t fucking professional. If I didn’t think this was where he’s meant to be we’d have walked the second your name was called on that stage. So if I find out that you had even an _inkling_ of any of this and didn’t give us a heads up? Well, there are much worse things the Device family can do to your career than not represent you."

She gave him a sickly sweet smile and then casually dropped her eyes back to her mobile, as though she hadn’t just _threatened him_ , here in the corridor at his place of work where she and Crowley were merely _interlopers_. 

Aziraphale probably would have held his tongue, had he been able to fortify himself before this interaction with a proper cup of tea. Really, Thomas Twining had so much to answer for.

"I assure you, I knew as much about this as you did. They have informed me that Crowley and I are both free to leave, any time we may wish to do so. I could have walked out of this building and gone directly home but much like you, I am a professional. I take my job very seriously, Ms Device. If Crowley wishes to stay and be my partner—and take _his part_ in all this seriously—I will gladly teach him to the best of my ability. If he doesn’t, well. I understand that is wholly his decision."

Anathema considered him. He wasn’t sure how exactly he knew that’s what she was doing, but he felt it. He was being _considered_. Aziraphale really hoped the universe wouldn’t be making a habit of this. It was murder on his blood pressure.

"Alright."

"... alright?"

"Alright. I can work with you. More importantly, I can get him to work with you. I’ll be in touch," she said, and freed him from her scrutiny to return once more to her typing. The dismissal was as neat and precise as a full stop on a telegram.

 _Well, that was easier than expected_.

Aziraphale peered at her phone on the way past, which he knew was a tad rude of him but, well— she had started it, after all, constantly looking at it during their conversation. She was not perusing Twitter, as he would have suspected, but instead had opened a web browser and was typing in something that he couldn’t quite read from this distance. It looked, however, suspiciously like the words ' _BIRTH TIME+PLACE AZIRAPHALE FELL'_

* * *

_TWENTY DAYS UNTIL THE FIRST LIVE SHOW_

* * *

Crowley was grateful that he could call Anathema, say to her, “hey, I need to borrow your weed trousers” and she would immediately know that he meant her pair of jersey drop-waist pants that made her look like she was off on a gap year. His hips were slimmer than Anathema’s, and he had to pull the drawstring as tight as he could to keep them up, but they were better than jeans. Madame Tracy’s list had mentioned leggings, but Crowley had vetoed that on the grounds that he didn’t want to look like David Bowie in _Labyrinth._ He found a black vest and a bobble to tie his hair into a messy bun, and although people might look at him now and think _ah, that’s a man who does fire poi on weekends_ , he couldn’t deny that he was comfortable. He sent Anathema a selfie as thanks, and she responded with a few choice pictures of culturally appropriative tattoos.

She then sent him a text, calibrated to arrive just as he was entering the BBC building, which said simply: _Crowley? Try._

Manipulative, that’s what she was. The outfit wasn’t going to fix the fact that he was bad at dancing. He had images—visions, really, they came to him late at night with the force and clarity of holy revelations—of him crushing Aziraphale’s foot or elbowing him in the jaw, triggering a lawsuit of such proportions that he’d be forced to leave public life entirely. 

He didn’t express this fear to Aziraphale. Anathema was always going on about The Secret and he was worried that saying it aloud would speak it into being. Instead he turned up to rehearsal only five minutes late, with _bottled water_ (ugh) and a can-do attitude. 

Unfortunately, Crowley’s attempt at a can-do attitude looked more like open hostility to the untrained eye.

“Look,” snapped Crowley, chucking the bag containing his civilian clothes on the floor and stripping off his jacket, “I know I’m rubbish, alright? I don’t want you to be encouraging when I’m being shit.”

“... Good morning,” said Aziraphale. To his credit, he took this outburst with only mild alarm, re-tying his bow tie in the mirrors lining the studio wall. 

Crowley paced. “I’m just saying, this will go a lot better if you talk to me like an adult.”

“Horrible weather out there, isn’t it?” Aziraphale mused. 

“This isn’t me saying I won’t try, ‘cause I will. I’ve decided to, anyway."

"Weather's on the turn. I shall have to dig out my galoshes."

"I just think you should call a spade a spade and we can get through this with the smallest amount of— are you listening to me?”

Aziraphale blinked, meeting Crowley’s eye in the mirror. “Sorry. I’m afraid I went somewhere very soothing and quiet for a moment, to another dance studio, where my partner didn’t burst in mid-tantrum and tell me encouragement was for children.”

“That’s not what— ugh.” Crowley took his hair out of its bun, shook it out, and then put it back up again in order to have something to do with his hands. “I’m just saying that there’s no point in you going softly-softly, yeah? I know the situation we’re in, and _you_ know the situation we’re in, so let’s just— let’s just work, alright?”

Aziraphale rubbed his eyes. For the first time, Crowley noticed that he looked tired.

“Do you? Understand the situation, I mean.” 

Crowley hissed through his teeth. “I do,” he said grimly.

Aziraphale nodded. “Then I take it you received your email from Management?”

Crowley rolled his eyes. He had gotten an email, yes. It was full of a lot of doublespeak and false concern and ‘sorry you were upset by our decision to drop you in the shit feet first’ sentiment disguised as a real apology. Anathema had ranted about it for twenty-three minutes, and then attempted to call Gabriel so she could rant about it to a fresh audience. Some greasy-voiced bootlicker had answered instead, and the upshot of it was that Crowley had been given an ultimatum: either suck it up or drop out.

“Have you made your decision?” Aziraphale asked. His shoulders were tensed, like he was bracing for something. Crowley scowled.

“I told you, I’ll give it a go.” He hadn’t ruled out the possibility of a dramatic exit further down the line, should more shenanigans occur. “Look, I’m wearing the right trousers and everything.”

Aziraphale eyed him in a way that was simultaneously unflattering and weirdly intense. “Yes, I did, ah, note the outfit. I’m glad to see you have made an attempt at professionalism.” There was definitely a jab of some kind in there that Crowley chose to ignore. “In that case, let’s put last week behind us, yes? Come at this with renewed, erm, vim.” He did some sort of enthusiastic motion with his arm. 

“Vim. Right. I can do vim,” said Crowley. He shook his bottle of water in order to show that he had a bottle of water, much like someone who exercised habitually would. The two of them smiled at each other, and Crowley comforted himself with the thought that however this session might go, at least they couldn’t be as bad as last time. 

They were not. They were worse.

“Blistering _fuck_ ,” swore Crowley, as he tripped over his own foot and nearly faceplanted into the polished floor. “Shitfuckingbastard _Christ.”_ He kicked at the boards and left a long smear of black rubber off his shoe, and for a second he was reminded so viscerally of P.E. at school that he found himself getting wound up all over again. Not only was he bad, but he was bad in a way that would be impossible to explain to other people. He wasn’t a clumsy man. He wasn’t ungainly. He didn’t always understand what his limbs were doing, but he respected them enough to let them follow their own path. Until now, this had worked in his favour. Once, someone writing up an interview with him for the Sunday Times _Culture_ mag had described him as “graceful, in a non-Euclidean sort of way”, and he thought that the closest anyone had ever come to describing his physicality properly.

“You almost had it, there!” said Aziraphale cheerfully.

Crowley spun around. He was sweaty. His hair was coming out of its bun. He’d only had one coffee today because he was trying to stay properly hydrated, and now he was being offered _platitudes_.

“What did I say about the bloody _niceties_?” he hissed.

Aziraphale _tsked_ , and pressed pause on the CD player, which was tooting out something instrumental that sounded like it had been made in Garageband. He did not have a hair out of place. He wasn’t even breathing hard. The type of shoes he wore left no marks on the floor. “I’m being honest! You can’t ask me not to be pleasant to you _at all_.”

“When it’s deserved, you can, yeah,” Crowley muttered, and _god_ , that was probably something he should talk to Aubrey about, but she’d been a little too good at her job lately and he liked to keep her on her toes. 

“Have you ever played the trumpet, Crowley?” asked Aziraphale.

“Is this a euphemism?”

“No, it’s a comparative exercise. If you had never played the trumpet, and I handed one to you right now, would you expect to be able to play ‘ _When The Saints Go Marching In'_?'”

Crowley rolled his eyes. “Yeah, good job, great mentoring or whatever, but s’not dancing, is it? Dancing’s meant to be one of those natural things, right? Like, anyone can do it. Some people have the grace and the rhythm and some people just don’t.”

“I was a terrible dancer all the way through to adulthood,” said Aziraphale mildly. “I didn’t get any good at it until I went to stage school proper, and then I had to get good or else they’d throw me out. I’d wager I was worse than you.” 

Stage school, christ. Crowley made a note to ask if he’d gone to RADA. 

“Fine, but I don’t have years of intense training and theatrical fascism to whip me into shape, do I? It's not even that I'm a terrible dancer—which is a part of it, believe me, it's a _big_ part of it—but this is now a Thing. A Moment. _Strictly Come Dancing_ making history, and I'm supposed to be the one to help make it—an honour I didn't even ask for, by the way!—and all I've got to make sure I don't bollocks it up royally is a few short weeks in this room, and you.”

A brief silence. Crowley avoided his reflection in the mirrors lining the opposite wall. 

“Then that will have to do,” said Aziraphale. He rubbed his eyes again. It was on the tip of Crowley’s tongue to ask _you alright?_ in a deliberately casual way that would be easy for Aziraphale to brush off, but he didn’t. Instead he stood, wavering, drinking his water while he tried to decide what to do. Aziraphale scrubbed a hand through his white-blond hair, and Crowley kept drinking his water, and looking at him, until there was no water left and he still hadn’t come up with anything to say.

“What?” said Aziraphale. His hair was sticking up in all directions, and Crowley’s sunglasses were peeking out of his top pocket. Crowley had forgotten they were there. He made himself stop looking at him.

“Nothing,” he said. “Once more, with feeling, yeah?”

The music started again, and Crowley put his hand on Aziraphale’s shoulders with a fatalistic feeling, and Aziraphale put his hands on Crowley’s waist, and the two of them began to shuffle through the beginner’s steps like an ancient couple at a dance class for the elderly, and Crowley focussed so hard on not stepping on Aziraphale’s toes that once again his spine began to sway of its own accord.

Aziraphale sighed, and grabbed Crowley’s hips to hold him still. 

And Crowley… stilled. He gave an experimental pull, but in the split second before Aziraphale let go he realised how firmly he had been held in place. Aziraphale was strong, stronger than he looked with his swing trousers and his sweater vest and his _who, me?_ expression, and suddenly some of Crowley’s tension eased. He wasn’t going to damage this man. He was a brick wall, swaddled in wool.

Experimentally, he stood on Aziraphale’s foot.

Aziraphale frowned, looking down with a bemused expression. “What was that for?”

“Just testing something,” said Crowley. He felt giddy. “Toes alright?”

“...fine,” said Aziraphale slowly, eyeing his sensible cream loafers. “But I’m fond of these, so perhaps a little—”

“Yes! Sorry, won’t happen again. Well, I can’t promise it won’t. But not on purpose.” He grinned, right in Aziraphale’s face. Aziraphale grinned back on reflex, a part of him was always looking to mirror his partner and would do so, regardless of understanding or common sense, and briefly, _briefly_ , Crowley felt it— the connection Aziraphale had been on about.

The rest of the rehearsal was shit, but that bit was alright.

* * *

The Launch episode aired on a Saturday, one week later.

Or, to be more accurate,

_FOURTEEN DAYS UNTIL THE FIRST LIVE SHOW._

* * *

To be _even more_ accurate, the Launch episode aired on the first Saturday of September at 7:20pm, and finished at 8:50pm. The tweets started coming in at 8:45pm, and Anathema took Crowley’s phone away at 8:53pm.

She gave it back to him on Sunday morning with the caveat that he not go scrolling through Twitter. Crowley agreed. He un-agreed ten minutes later, when he found her copy of _Ciao!_ magazine stashed under the couch cushions when she went to the loo. 

“Oh look, Anathema. Someone has written a touching thinkpiece about how having a male/male couple on _Strictly_ shows the BBC’s commitment to equality and diversity.”

Anathema sighed. “Lovely. And what do we do with thinkpieces?”

Crowley opened the window and threw out his copy of _Ciao!_ , where it landed on the balcony of the flat below. Luckily, that flat was owned by an American businessman who had not stepped foot on English soil for years, and the _Ciao!_ magazine would quietly join the strata of newspapers, fag-ends, wilted plants and broken remotes that had attracted Crowley’s ire over the years.

“Tell you what, they work bloody quick, nowadays,” mused Crowley. He had of course _immediately_ looked up the digital version of the article online. He was sprawled upside down on the couch, his legs dangling over the back and kicking idly at the air. Anathema, who was like the Cesar Milan of Crowley behaviour, knew that this posture indicated distress. “Took them, what, three whole days to publish those pictures of me snogging that bloke in Soho?”

“That wasn’t a nationally televised event, unless there’s something you’re not telling me,” Anathema reminded him. “Gimme your phone.”

“You get to read the gossip rags, how come I don’t get to read tweets?” he whined.

“Because they’re _bad for you._ ” Anathema feinted at his armpit, and when Crowley curled defensively she snatched the phone from his grasp. “Also, I don’t want you tweeting anything you shouldn’t be tweeting, not when I’m putting in all this effort to reconstruct your brand.”

“Oh, well, if it’s for the sake of the _brand_ —”

“Also,” she continued, as if she hadn’t heard him, “we need to start thinking interview strategies. My phone, as you might have noticed if you weren’t so self-absorbed, has been ringing all morning with people trying to set up _chats_. So far I’ve fibbed them off, but—”

“Fobbed them off,” Crowley corrected automatically, then sat up, rigid, anxiety straightening his spine quicker than Aziraphale ever could. “Fobbed them off, and what do you mean interviews, I’m not doing interviews—”

Anathema looked at him like he was mad. “Of course you’re doing interviews, what is wrong with you? We agreed to this for the publicity! I’m your publicist!”

“Agent!”

“I multi-class!” she snapped. “Interviews are opportunities, you know this. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to sit in a big boy chair and be nice to some journalists.”

He did not want to be nice to some journalists. He gave Anathema a baleful look to communicate this.

“Aziraphale will be doing the rounds, too,” she reminded him. “We can set up joint interviews at first, if you want?” _If you need someone to hold your hand_ , she was conspicuously not-saying.

Crowley sat back and tried to remember that he had done this for the work opportunities, and the attention, and the career progression, and that he had been an actor for over twenty years of his life. He had snogged people on camera, and done full-frontal nudity, and had appeared onstage weeping and tearing at his hair, and embarrassed himself publicly for years and years with nary a twinge of embarrassment, and then he’d done interviews about it that he’d turned up to hungover and, one one memorable occasion, still drunk.

But in all that time, he’d never done reality TV. It wasn’t like talking about a role, or making up some wank about his process. When people watched him on _Strictly_ , they weren’t watching a character. They were watching him, trying to do something he was very bad at, in a fairly earnest fashion. The thought of talking to someone else about it made him feel raw and exposed in a way he hadn’t felt in years. 

“Anathema,” he said slowly, “what if I’ve forgotten how to do this?”

She gave him a look that was both compassionate and deeply, deeply exasperated. “It’s like riding a bike, Crowley. You never forget.”

Crowley, who had never learned to ride a bike, nodded.

* * *

_THIRTEEN DAYS UNTIL THE FIRST LIVE SHOW_

* * *

Aziraphale would have liked to say that, in their weeks of practise, Crowley had come along in leaps and bounds. He had not. He had come along in shuffles and half-steps, tentative as a toddler and just as infuriating, but he _had_ come along, and though Aziraphale was hardly moved to sing his praises from the rooftops, he had to admit that wasn’t nothing. Every rehearsal Crowley turned up with the look of a man coming to the gallows, whipped off his hideous jacket, and did his stretches with a determination that, quite honestly, unnerved Aziraphale. He would then make the exact same mistakes as he had in the previous rehearsal. There was something about being stared at intensely whilst one’s toes were trodden on for the hundredth time that felt like, well, a power move, but he came to learn that this was part and parcel of Anthony J Crowley: a man who would repeatedly stick his hand in a fire to prove that _this_ time, he wouldn’t be so badly burned.

The Monday following the Launch premiere, however, Crowley came in quiet. It was now less than a fortnight until their first live performance, and Aziraphale’s nerves were beginning to fray. He couldn’t imagine how Crowley felt, and he couldn’t ask, because he was certain Crowley would not tell him. They had managed to achieve civility, but there was still a divide between them, an unbridgeable gap that puzzled Aziraphale— it was as if Crowley felt they were on opposite sides, though of what sort of conflict Aziraphale couldn’t possibly imagine. All attempts at sincerity, kindness, encouragement or camaraderie were rebuffed. In fact, the only thing Crowley responded well to, he had learned, were _jibes._

So when Crowley traipsed in, Aziraphale did not say _how are you, dear boy_ or _are you feeling quite well,_ both of which he would have preferred. Instead he said, “Goodness. A mere three minutes late. Am I to interpret this as enthusiasm, or did you simply forget to hang around outside for the requisite ten minutes before wandering in?”

Crowley started, but he managed a grin. “You knew about that, eh?”

“They buzz me when you enter the building, you know. There’s a little intercom over there, on the wall. Geoff—dear Geoff, at Reception, lovely man, his wife’s expecting—he gives me a ‘heads up’.”

Crowley deflected weakly. “Wife! The flirt.”

Aziraphale almost said that everything about Crowley was constructed to make it hard _not_ to flirt with him, but he was worried that may in itself be misconstrued as flirting, so he kept his mouth shut. 

“Did you, ah. Watch Launch Week?” he asked, as casually as he was able.

Crowley conspicuously avoided his eyes over the tops of his sunglasses. “Not deliberately,” he drawled. “Anathema made me.”

“How did you find it?”

“All the bits that weren’t us were boring, and all the bits that were us were excruciating. Won’t be watching any of the others, that’s for sure.”

Aziraphale winced. Truthfully, he had not enjoyed Launch Week either. 

“We will have to watch them, I’m afraid,” he said. “Well, the bits with us in, at least. They are quite an invaluable resource! We can take a very forensic look at the whole routine, analyse what we’re doing wrong, make notes for future practise—”

“Yes, yes, alright, you’re a dance swot, I get it,” Crowley grumbled. Aziraphale almost took offence, before concluding that if Crowley responded well to jibes, perhaps the opposite was also true— perhaps insults were how he expressed appreciation.

“And you’re a— a dance dunce,” he said experimentally, and Crowley looked at him with an expression of such horror that Aziraphale panicked. “By which I mean— I meant no offence—”

Crowley burst out laughing. “A dance— alright, yeah. Okay. Quick question, what even _are_ you.”

They had already made some abortive moves towards learning the cha cha cha, but Crowley had been, to put it mildly, rather vocal in his distaste. As the first notes of Sam Cooke’s ode to the dance began, Crowley _wailed._

“Now, Crowley, really. Everybody loves to cha cha cha,” said Aziraphale, sternly.

“Not me. I do not love to cha cha cha.” Crowley handed over his sunglasses, without being asked. “In fact, I would go so far as to say that I bloody hate to cha cha cha, and that, given the choice, I’d rather do literally anything other than the cha cha cha.” 

“Hmm. What about ring HMRC?” said Aziraphale, nudging him into position. “Get a root canal? Take the Northern Line at rush hour?”

“Talk to a craft beer wanker,” said Crowley, dourly. “Get food poisoning. Experience that thing where you throw up and a bit goes up your nose.”

“Video chat. Watch—no, _side, together, side, together_ —Watch every season of _Downton Abbey_.”

“God, that’s a grim—fuck, missed a step—thought. Attend an ABBA tribute concert.”

“Oh, I’ve done that. I have, in fact, performed at an ABBA tribute concert. Besides, I think I rather capped it with the _Downton Abbey_ thing.” 

“You did, but, but can we go back to the ABBA tribute concert thing, because that’s just sad. It’s not even _real_ ABBA.”

“Yes, well, I come from a background in which the _Mamma Mia_ film was considered a _tour de force_.” 

“... I take your point,” said Crowley, and then, as if realising that he’d been doing rather well for the past two minutes, suddenly forgot the entire routine. They started again.

“I feel like a right pillock,” said Crowley. “It’s like four poxy steps. This is a dance for geriatrics.”

Aziraphale refrained from telling him that he knew many geriatrics with more rhythm. 

“Ah, but you see, that’s the beauty of the song! It’s the story of two partners, one of whom cannot cha cha cha even remotely, and so her boyfriend teaches her how to do the dance and by the end she’s even better than he is at it.”

“Yeah but that doesn’t mean she _loves_ it, does it? We can all do stuff we’re not keen on with enough motivation. Like, for instance, impersonating a ridiculously well-loved Swedish supergroup. There must be something you can do pretty well that you still hate?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, miserably. “The cha cha cha.”

Crowley stopped attempting to step in time with the music to stare at him.

“You’re joking.”

“I’m not.”

“Must be.”

“I assure you, I am decidedly not joking. Jokes are funny. There is nothing funny at all about the depths of my hatred for what is essentially a dance fit only for cruise ship entertainment.”

Crowley’s jaw worked. “Aziraphale. If you hate the cha cha cha that much, then I have to ask— why the _hell_ are we doing it for our first dance.”

“Because it’s simple to teach, hard to muck up, gets it out of the way and if you _really_ must know... I never score very highly with it. Something about my _obvious lack of enthusiasm._ ”

Crowley laughed, and Aziraphale was, momentarily, blindsided. Crowley laughed with his whole body, head thrown back, shoulders heaving, and this was probably a cathartic moment of some kind for him but all Aziraphale could think was that he needed to channel _this_ , somehow— find a way to take whatever it was that was keeping Crowley so tense and combative and break it down into very little pieces that could be swept tidily away, because if he could do _that_ , there was a person underneath that Aziraphale thought he could maybe, possibly, connect with.

“ _Everybody hates to cha cha cha_ ,” Crowley intoned. “ _But they make us do the cha cha cha._ D’you know. I hate. This _fucking_ show.”

“Noted,” said Aziraphale. “However—”

“Yeah yeah, I know. Let’s go then. Side, together, side…”

The morning wore on, and then the afternoon, and Aziraphale nipped out to get sandwiches Crowley didn’t eat, and it still wasn’t kindness, and it still wasn’t camaraderie, but it was easier. It was something. And that, Aziraphale reminded himself, wasn’t nothing.

“So, wait. You performed at a—”

“At a _Mamma Mia_ tribute concert, yes.”

“You did a tribute to a film which was a tribute to a band?”

“No, I did a tribute to a film based off a stage show which was a tribute to a band.” Aziraphale paused. “It was rather like a camp ouroboros.”

It wasn’t nothing.

“Do you know,” Crowley said, dusting himself off and retrieving his crumpled jacket from the corner, “I think I’m getting the hang of this. Don’t want to jinx it, or anything, but I don’t think we’ll be too bad on the night.”

Aziraphale hoped he was right.

* * *

He wasn’t.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello once more from your showrunners [mort](http://www.twitter.com/mortifyingideal) & marginalia! thanks for tuning in again this week. 
> 
> in the most exciting news EVER, please keep an eye out on [naniiebim's](https://twitter.com/naniiebim/status/1269512996214226949?s=20) twitter because there is now ART FOR THIS FIC and there will be MORE ART FOR THIS FIC and we as showrunners are losing it but also playing it very cool. we can be cool, you don't know.
> 
> finally, if you haven't already, please check out the BLM carrd [here](https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/) and know that there are plenty of ways you can help out in the time it takes to read the new chapter of this very silly fic of ours. if you're in the UK, please consider donating to the UK BLM gofundme, and keep an eye on their [twitter](https://twitter.com/ukblm) for resources and information. there's work to do here, too. love and solidarity with all our readers in this fight.


	3. Week Two — The Salsa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **7.00pm** — A dismal performance in Week One lights a fire under our hapless duo, and they decide its time to get serious. A personality and his publicist plot, a professional gets a present, and a pontificating PowerPoint presentation puts a pillock in his place. Voting lines are now open for Week Two and, this week, there is no safety net.

* * *

There was something to be said, Crowley thought, for the own-brand supermarket bottle of wine. Sure, he had a few bottles of the 1970 Château Lafaurie-Peyraguey stashed away for a rainy day, and he was more than partial to a spot of Perrier-Jouët or Taittinger when the mood took him, but Crowley couldn’t deny the everlasting appeal of Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Sauvignon Blanc. It was decent enough; not too harsh, not too sweet, you’d get change for a tenner and, most importantly, it paired with almost anything. At the present moment, for example, Crowley had chosen to pair it with several _more_ bottles of Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Sauvignon Blanc, because that was the only way he could envision himself getting through the next hour of his life. He was considering, for a little _amuse-bouche_ , hunting down wherever the hell Anathema had hidden his last pack of cigs and inhaling them all at once, like an old Warner Brothers bit. Crowley started rummaging around in the drawers of his kitchen, the contents of which were a mystery to him at the best of times.

“You’ll never find them!”

Anathema’s sing-song voice drifted in from the living room.

“You’re the bane of my life.”

“Love you too. Are you going to come and watch this with me or not?”

Crowley gave up the search. She wouldn’t have hidden them in the kitchen, anyway, it was a desperate move in the first place. She’d probably buried the damn things in the woods under the light of a full moon, cast some spell to help him quit while the competition was in progress and he needed the full capacity of his much-abused lungs. Liquid comfort would have to suffice. He poured himself another generous glass of wine.

“Can see it from just fine in here, thanks.”

“You can’t see it _at all_ from in there.”

“S’my point.”

She appeared in the doorway, looking thoroughly unimpressed with him and holding out her own empty glass.

“You have to watch it. Aziraphale’s watching it.”

“Aziraphale can f— wait. How do you know that? Are you _texting_ him? You don’t even like him. You told me you don’t like him.”

Anathema raised a slim eyebrow and wiggled her glass again. He stared pointedly at it to convey to her just how shit it felt when someone kept something from you that you _very much needed,_ but it was a poor effort. He swiped the wine off the counter and moved the scant two feet to meet her, filling it up as aggressively as he could.

“I’m not texting Aziraphale, I don’t have to like him to see the importance of working with him, and I never actually _said_ that I felt that way. I think you might be projecting, Crowley.” 

“Project _you_ in a minute,” Crowley muttered. The nervous irritation under his skin combined with the amount of wine he’d already drunk was making him a bit feeble in the comeback department. He was usually much sharper than that, he was certain of it. 

“Who are you texting, then?”

“None of your business. Look, just come watch your bit with me, okay? As your manager, I am telling you, it’s not that bad.”

He followed her into the living room, but only because she hadn’t left him much choice. She’d taken all the wine with her.

“Fine, fine, let’s get it over with, then,” Crowley slumped onto the sofa, suspiciously eyeing the telly, trying to convey with his pose how very not-on-board with this he all was. He was particularly impressed with the dramatic tilt of his right leg.

 _Where was that sort of cooperation on Saturday night, eh?_ he thought in the general direction of his knee.

His carefully crafted posture was instantly destroyed by Anathema’s legs slamming down on top of his, locking him in place as she began to skip ahead through the episode to reach their dance.

“Okay, don’t freak out on me, but. Like I told you before, as your manager, yes, I would say that this is not that bad. However, as your friend? I can tell you now that it’s _absolutely_ that bad and this is gonna suck for you.”

Crowley attempted to bolt immediately, to no avail.

“Nope, nuh-uh. You gotta sit there and you gotta watch it and then you and I are going to _talk_ , Crowley.”

She hit play, totally obliterating the cigarette thing’s currently-held record as the cruellest thing she’d ever done to him. Anathema had understated when she said it was absolutely that bad. It was the single most horrible ninety seconds he’d ever had to sit through in his life, and Crowley had done a brief stint a few years back as an improv instructor.

“I am going to need to go into sodding witness protection. We need to hire at least three more therapists and possibly a hitman. Fucking _hell,_ Anathema, how can I crawl back from this?!”

Anathema patted his traitorous knee, then hit pause. It was exactly the wrong frame to pause on. Crowley was confronted with himself, sweaty, grimacing, eyes wide and panicked, with limbs at angles that mathematicians had not yet discovered. They were lucky there were no eliminations in the first week, but from here on? He was completely, completely fucked.

“Okay. I’m done comforting you—”

“That’s what you call _comforting_ me?!”

“—because it’s time to talk strategy. It’s clear that you’re having issues with the dancing element of this, but that’s not the biggest problem, and it’s also not really the solution.”

“Anathema, this is a dancing show. It’s literally, entirely, all about dancing.”

‘It’s not,” she said, decisively, gesturing at the screen. “Look.”

He did, begrudgingly. Anathema gave him what he affectionately referred to as The Look, the one that said _see? I’m right_ and so he responded in kind with one that said _what are you on about, you absolute madwoman._

“Look _again,_ Crowley. You’re not the only one up there. It takes two to tango.”

“Yeah but it only takes one to ruin the cha cha cha, and that one is me.”

“Not true,” she said. “Aziraphale fucks up as much as you here, in my opinion.”

Crowley blinked at that. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, he’s meant to be the professional, right? He looks like he’s hating every second of it. You can tell he doesn’t wanna dance with you—sorry, Crowley—and he’s not _performing_ the dance properly. He’s got that sucky lemon face that he does when something’s pissing him off. The judges always pick up on that with him in certain dances, and this is no exception.”

“Out of interest, how many past seasons of this show have you watched now, and have I been paying you for those hours?”

“I’m very dedicated to my job,” she said, smugly. “This thing is never going to work if the two of you can’t bring a little more… personality to your routines. A little friendliness on screen goes a long way. What did I say to you before that rehearsal, huh?”

“You said _try_ , I know, I know,” he let his head thump against the back of the sofa. “I was. Trying, I mean. We were kind of getting along at the end there. He’s sort of funny, if you squint a bit.”

Anathema was silent for a while. This irked him, because he was counting on her to say something, to tell him the answer, to let him know he was on the right track and not leave him floundering out here trying to make big decisions and personal revelations all by himself. Why had he invited this terribly insightful woman into his life, and why was he paying her for the pleasure of staring judgmentally into his soul?

“I mean, it’s not like we’re gonna go skipping off into the sunset together any time soon, but he’s. I think he’s alright, yeah. In a dickish way. I could have seen us being a little friendly, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Uh- _huh_. Well, that’s something, at least. So what I need from you is for you to build on that, Crowley.”

“I said I _could_ have seen it. Don’t see how I can now, though. Doesn’t matter how bad _you_ think he did, he’ll never see himself at fault. I’m the bad one, a _dance dunce_ , I’ll never hear the end of this. You don’t know what he’s _like_ , Anathema. All fluffy and angelic on the outside but make one wrong move and it’s all Old Testament and turning people into pillars of salt with a look.”

“You have a pretty loose interpretation of Scripture, here, but okay.”

“Feels like I’m just doing the same shit over and over some days,” Crowley mused as he drained the last of his glass, feeling his mouth getting carried away without so much as a by-your-leave from his brain. “I promised myself, back in the day, I said— _Crowley, you never have to put up with this again. No more bastard directors; no more insulting auditions; no more fussy gits in outdated clothing to make you feel like—like—_ ” He broke off here, content that a mob of drawn-out vowels and the occasional trespassing consonant would get the point across. “—and then, turns out, not _only_ was I catastrophically wrong about that, but it’s the same fussy git!”

The sound of another bottle of Sainsbury’s finest being unscrewed reminded Crowley that he had an audience for this little monologue. He cleared his throat; sniffed casually. The picture of nonchalance. Nothing to see here people, move along.

“Weren’t you saying something about having a strategy? Come on, you’re meant to be managing me, so manage me.”

Anathema went to pour him a fresh glass of wine then, in an act of deep and abiding benevolence he had thought her incapable of, instead just passed him the bottle to swig from.

“I want to start scheduling interviews with you and Aziraphale from next week. It’s too soon to do it this week and besides, you’ve gotta try and get friendlier with him first. Your auras are like bruised fruit when you’re together and we’ve _got_ to do something about that before I let a journalist anywhere near the two of you.”

Crowley made a mental check of how long it had taken her to mention his aura in this conversation. It usually cropped up far, far sooner in her motivational speeches about his career, which was how he knew she wanted him to take this whole thing seriously. 

“Right, so, _get friendlier_ with him and then, what, exactly? Play nice on telly, ham it up and win the public vote because in their eyes we’re just a couple of cheery old gays in sparkly outfits making the most of a bad situation?”

She gave him The Look again. This time, he didn’t need clarification. She was a genius and, worst of all, she was _right._

“Fuck me. That could work. Anathema, that— that could _work_.”

Anathema toasted his wine bottle with her own. For the first time in a while, Crowley felt a pesky stab of hope in the vague region of his heart. Maybe he should get Anathema something nice, a little present to say thanks for sticking by him all these years, thanks for being so bloody brilliant and looking out for his career, maybe he could grab something for Aziraphale at the same time too as a little olive branch, but mostly Anathema definitely deserved—

“Of course, this doesn’t mean you can stop trying to get better at dancing. Look, I’ll unpause it, watch, watch this bit here— right there! I don’t understand how you make your body _do_ that, it looks like every single part of you is working independent of your brain, and also your brain has never heard of dancing, or music, or rhythm before. It’s actually kind of impressive. You look like someone’s failed attempt at a Rube Goldberg machine came to life.”

—to rot in hell.

* * *

Aziraphale lived in a tucked-in corner of Soho, in a flat which, had he attempted to buy it today, would have turned his chequebook to ash and caused his accountant to spontaneously combust. Fortunately, he had purchased it at a time when London property prices were only ridiculously rather than flammably high, and had held onto it ever since. He lived primarily in the upper floors, in the two or three rooms that housed the front room, bedroom, and bathroom, all of which he kept fairly clean and not at all tidy. The bathroom was that avocado colour of bygone popularity, and the bed was, tragically, a four-poster, and occasionally Aziraphale remembered that he had a guest bedroom somewhere if he could only recall where the door was. The existence of that room alone in _Soho_ would have made any self-respecting real estate agent’s eyes pop out of his head, but Aziraphale would never sell. He would live in the flat til the end of his days, if he had his way. After all, where else would he store all his books?

Aziraphale spent most of his time in the kitchen-cum-living room, and he had made few concessions to modernity. His countertops were less than five years old. He had a standing mixer. His fridge and cooker were both newish, sleek and briskly efficient things, but they were bubble-shaped and retro in an American fashion that looked out of place against the Turkish carpet, leather armchair and genuine antique furniture that crowded the other half of the room. Aziraphale had bought them because they were yellow. Everything in the “living” half of the room was a hodgepodge of patterned upholstery and clashing shades of beige, knick-knacks and charity shop finds, the strange flotsam that he had gathered around him over the years to form a little nest. Aziraphale could admit that his home probably looked shabby, and old-fashioned, and a little... _passé_ to his occasional visitors, but in fact, the overall effect was cozy, if a bit eccentric. The strangest thing to most people would probably be that Aziraphale did not own a television. This _was_ odd, for someone who was so frequently on it— or perhaps this was what made it understandable. 

Regardless, it meant that when Aziraphale sat down to watch the first proper episode of the new _Strictly_ season on Saturday, he did so in his squashy leather armchair, with a glass of wine at his elbow, on his battered old laptop. He had to angle the laptop slightly, as the battery was shot and he had to make sure the charger stretched to the outlet on the wall. He loaded up BBC iPlayer and clicked ‘yes’ on the supercilious little pop-up that asked if he had a TV licence, as he did every time, even though he had never knowingly purchased a TV licence in his life. 

The video buffered.

And then Aziraphale experienced one of the most harrowing hours of his life, there in his perfectly comfortable, perfectly safe living room, with a perfectly safe bottle of Sainsbury’s Taste The Difference Sauvignon Blanc. 

Each time Crowley and he appeared onscreen they looked more anxious, more wooden, their faces frozen in a twin rictus of identical showbiz grins. That was the only synchronicity between them. They never looked at each other. Their responses to the presenters were rote and humourless, but delivered with a horrible, stilted laughter. At one point, Aziraphale heard himself say, “I’m delighted with my partner, I couldn’t ask for a more delightful partner, I’m delighted”, and Crowley, after an agonising pause, added, “same”, and then they both laughed like loons. Aziraphale wanted to put his head in his hands. He almost didn’t watch their dance, but professionalism and moral duty compelled him. He spent the entire one minute and thirty seconds peeking out from between his fingers like a child watching _Quatermass._ Then he downed his glass of wine and watched it again, then a third time, just for self-flagellation.

It wasn’t Crowley’s fault, really. Well, it was, but he was not solely responsible. Aziraphale had never seen two people who looked less like they wanted to be dancing together. They kept circumspectly apart, leaving not just room enough for Jesus but for all his disciples and the Divine Host, to boot. He half-walked, half-dragged Crowley through the steps, neither of them looking at the other, and Aziraphale was hotly, gut-churningly ashamed. Crowley was bad, yes, but Aziraphale was supposed to be the professional. He was supposed to put his best foot forward, metaphorically and literally speaking. Instead he had allowed his own reticence and _bad feeling_ to intrude on their work together. Crowley could have been the most able contestant in the world, and Aziraphale would have soured their partnership with his _issues._ He almost picked up the phone to call and apologise, but belatedly realised that he did not have Crowley’s number, a basic bit of courtesy that he would have extended to any other contestant in their first meeting together as partners. 

This was inexcusable. Something had to be done.

* * *

Crowley was going to be late to rehearsal again. It wasn’t a conscious move, being late all the time. Or at least it wasn’t _this_ particular time, but he was pretty certain Aziraphale was still going to take it as some sort of calculated slight against his person. If anything, Crowley reckoned, it just showed that he was capable of being consistent.

 _Consistently awful,_ he thought with a barely held-in groan.

That was the problem, wasn’t it? His timing. He was awful. _They_ were awful, together. Anathema’s comments about their auras echoed in his mind and he hated that the more he thought about it, the more he could kind of see what she meant. He chewed on his thumbnail as he reached the front of the queue for the little barista stand outside the _Strictly_ studio. 

“Coffee. Strong as you can legally make it,” he said, and then happened upon a thought that the Crowley of last week would have never entertained in a million years. “Make that two, actually. No, shit, wait. Hang on.”

Crowley wasn’t prepped for this sort of decision so early in the morning. Well, so middle-of-the-morning. He knew he was dithering and the barista was looking at him with the usual amount of patience Crowley inspired in people, i.e. none at all.

“So two coffees, mate, or...?”

“Ehhh yes. No! Make one a tea. That sounds right, doesn’t it? Tea? Seems like he’s a tea drinker, that one came out the womb with his pinky finger raised.”

Crowley chuntered on mostly to himself as he pocketed half their supply of little milk pots and sugar sachets in full view of the increasingly more dead-behind-the-eyes barista. _Always be prepared_ , that was his motto. Or, well, _always nick what isn’t nailed down_. Take your pick. He paid via his phone, limiting any further chit-chat and negating the expectation that he might toss any change received in the little tip cup. Tottering into the studios, he jutted out a hip to flash the pass attached there at Has-A-Wife-Geoff (who winked as he buzzed him through— saucy minx), and arrived at the rehearsal space just in time to witness Aziraphale doing what looked like a fucking pirouette. 

“Is that a fucking pirouette?”

“Oh, good, you _do_ seem to know some dance terminology. Have you been taking extra lessons? Because that would be an acceptable excuse as to your lateness this morning, Crowley. The _only_ acceptable excuse.”

Somehow, the fact Aziraphale kept twirling while telling him off didn’t make it easier to ridicule him. 

_This man,_ Crowley thought, _is ridiculous. Who the hell can do a_ pirouette _passive-aggressively?_

“Well if you’re gonna be like that, I suppose I should just drink the tea I brought you, then?”

Aziraphale finally came to a stop, lowering his leg and blinking slowly. He took Crowley in, eyes alighting on the cup as it was wiggled at him.

“You bought me a tea? From the... stall outside? I— thank you. That was unexpectedly kind of you.”

“Nah, they just mucked up my order. Embarrassing for them, really. I mean, do I look like I drink tea? Thought I may as well not let the extra go to waste, seeing as you look the sort to drink it.”

He wasn’t completely sure why he was lying about it. Letting Aziraphale know he’d purposefully spent money on getting him a cuppa could’ve been the next step in the whole ‘get friendly’ approach Anathema was so keen to push and it was, after all, why he’d thought to do it in the first place. It was just Aziraphale had jumped tracks from snippy and haughty to soft and happy so quickly over something as simple as a fucking Twinings teabag in hot water. Genuine gratitude, like unearned praise, made Crowley feel itchy, ergo: deflection.

“Ah. Well, thank you just the same, I suppose,” he said, taking the cup from Crowley’s outstretched hand. “I don’t mean to be fussy, but did you—”

Crowley pulled his hand out his pocket, revealing his spoils.

"That seems a bit excessive," Aziraphale smirked, eyebrow quirking.

"Little excess never hurt anyone."

"My dentist would beg to disagree, but we’re digressing," Aziraphale said, mixing his tea the way he must’ve liked it. He absentmindedly dropped the empty sachets back into Crowley’s still open palm, like it was Crowley’s problem now. 

"Did you see it?"

Aziraphale, he was learning, had a tendency to meander from conversation to conversation and then react as though it was everyone else, and not him, being difficult for not catching on immediately. Crowley blinked down at the rubbish in his hand.

"See what?"

"Us. Week One. The _Cha Cha Cha_. I did say that watching our performances would be worth doing, to help us identify what’s working and what— what isn’t. Since you’re here now, I rather think we should discuss it."

"Oh, Christ." He’d genuinely almost forgotten for a moment, he really had. "Can we talk about it once I’ve downed this? I’m not doing this without caffeine."

Aziraphale nodded, moving to sit with his back to the mirror that lined the studio wall. Crowley followed suit, knowing he’d hardly be able to look the man in the face for this conversation— he didn’t want to be confronted with having to look at himself on top of all that. He shrugged his bag off his shoulder and tossed it and his jacket into the corner, before sprawling out on the floor next to Aziraphale and handing him his sunglasses.

"So," Aziraphale said, once he apparently decided Crowley had been given enough time to digest his coffee, which was about thirty seconds after his very first glug. "Let’s talk."

"Right, yes, talking. Big talker me. Love to talk about stuff. Things. You know. Get it all... out there, right out in the open. So, let’s have it then. Come on, do your worst."

He braced himself for the scolding of a lifetime, stiffening automatically against what he assumed would be an onslaught of criticisms about his performance. He just had to get through this, and then he could work on bringing Aziraphale round to Anathema’s idea. Fucking hell, he was tense though. He was going to have to schedule an emergency session with a masseuse after this.

"I believe... I owe you an apology, Crowley."

"Look, it’s not _all_ my fault, you— you, uh. Did you just say you want to apologise?"

"We both could have performed better on Saturday night. Myself especially. Heaven knows I’ve been doing this long enough. I should have ensured I didn’t succumb to my mixed feelings on our progress and put on the best show I could have, but I utterly failed to do so, and I feel that I was responsible for a lot of the, the—oh, what is the expression?—the _bad vibes_." 

Crowley had a few false starts at responding. Aziraphale sipped at his tea, obviously willing to wait.

"I mean— yeah, you did look like you’d rather go skinny dipping in the Thames than be anywhere near me, but I didn’t make proximity the easiest thing in the world, did I? My, ugh, _vibes_ weren’t exactly stellar either. Sidenote, if you are actually in contact with Anathema, you legally have to tell me. I’m not about to start hearing how my footwork is the fault of Mercury being in retrograde, am I?"

Aziraphale laughed a little, then shot him a remorseful smile.

"No, you’re not. Your footwork is still entirely your own fault. And, well. All joking aside, we were incredibly fortunate that there are no eliminations in Week One. It’s my job to whip us into shape before this Saturday and I hope— Crowley, I really would like for us to work together on this. I honestly think we made a good start of it last week, but I know it’s all too easy to let the live show get the better of you.”

“I think it got the _worst_ of me, actually.”

“All the more reason for us to buck up and let them know we mean business. I categorically refuse to allow Gabriel the satisfaction of using us as some sort of flash-in-the-pan _cultural moment_ to be forgotten within a matter of weeks. I deserve much better than that, circumstances considering, and so do you."

Crowley finished off his coffee, plopping the cup to one side, and began to tie up his hair.

"So, spite as a motivator? Reckon I can probably work with that."

"You don’t have to make it sound so petty."

"You started it."

Aziraphale got to his feet, offering a hand down to hoist Crowley up as well. Crowley let himself be tugged up—worryingly, the ease which everyone seemed to manage to yank him about was bothering him less and less—and then let out a happy little exclamation, making Aziraphale jump. 

"Forgot! Brought you something. A present."

"Yes, I had realised you actually purchased the tea for me in the first place, Crowley, you aren’t nearly as subtle as you might like to think."

"What? No! I mean yes, alright, fair cop. This is something else. Technically it’s as much for me as it is for you," he said. Aziraphale looked worried, which was a sensible reaction considering the smile on Crowley’s face as he dug through his bag to bring it out. He unplugged the battered CD player that was so ancient he suspected may have been a Sony CDP-101 _prototype_ and kicked it to one side to make room for Aziraphale’s present. A few moments of fiddling about on his phone and it was all set up. He stood and turned with a flourish.

"Aziraphale, may I present to you: Alexa."

The blue ring on top of the black cylinder lit up at the use of the name. It hummed. Aziraphale narrowed his eyes at it, as though the machine had pointed out his trouser pleats were wonky and he wasn’t sure if it was a friendly intervention or a barbed jab. Crowley grinned. Sure, it was an olive branch with thorns, but it was still an olive branch. This was going to make rehearsals for the next few hours much, much more entertaining.

_He’s going to absolutely hate it._

***

"Alexa, could you please play that track again?"

 _Okay, Aziraphale. Playing_ **_Rompe Saraguey_ ** _by Héctor Lavoe from your music._

Crowley crushed his empty water bottle with a little more force than was probably necessary, but he was already committing the cardinal sin of drinking from non-recycled plastic. May as well go the whole hog and indulge in some wrath. The first eight beat phrase started to fill the space, and Aziraphale clapped delightedly.

"Oh, thank you, dear girl!"

"For the last time, Aziraphale, you don’t have to _thank it_ , it’s a machine."

"Seems terribly rude not to, though, doesn’t it? After all, she does exactly what I ask with no trouble whatsoever, unlike _some_ I could mention."

"It’s a machine! It doesn’t have a choice but to do exactly what you ask!" 

This wasn’t actually true. Crowley had owned an Alexa since they very first appeared on the market, and nine times out of ten interacting with it led to him sat with his head in his hands, repeating himself ad nauseam until he just gave up and let it play Queen for the eight hundredth time that night.

"Really, Crowley. You’re the one who brought her into our rehearsal space. You don’t have to sound so put out about it."

"I am not _put out_ that she— that it— oh, you’ve got me doing it now. Next thing you know I’ll be extolling the virtues of Skynet."

"And I’m sure it’s perfectly lovely, but we have more urgent matters to attend to."

Crowley almost asked, but no. Of course Aziraphale hadn’t seen The _Terminator_ films. He probably hadn’t seen a film since they started trying out these new-fangled things called _talkies._

"Yes, yes. Go on, show me that bit again with the hands and the feet and you walking around me like you’re not bothered."

They practiced the basics a few more times, Aziraphale talking through everything he was doing for Crowley’s benefit. Crowley learned lots of new terminology like _syncopation_ and _break step_ , and nodded along as Aziraphale explained the difference between _salsa dura_ and _salsa romantica_ like he was going to remember it the next day. They weren’t going to win any awards anytime soon, but he figured it was early days. At least they were getting _somewhere_. Yes, he was still shit and yes, Aziraphale still pulled that fucking face every time Crowley’s posture did something that felt normal enough but was apparently against the unwritten laws of ballroom. If they could get through this week’s show without being eliminated, Crowley swore he would become the world’s most diligent student; unfortunately, before they could even think about getting there, there was a little moment from earlier that he couldn’t let go of without comment. What was the point in getting friendly with someone if you couldn’t push their buttons every now and then? 

Crowley cleared his throat, making Aziraphale look up from the footwork he was in the middle of demonstrating. 

"You know, you didn’t _actually_ apologise."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You," he pointed at him. "You didn’t apologise."

"I did," Aziraphale wrinkled his nose.

"You didn’t."

"Crowley, we had a whole bloody conversation about it. I apologised, you accepted responsibility for your sudden and acute case of rigor mortis, we’ve now moved on. You’re just attempting to goad me while I’m trying to show you how to respond correctly to rejection."

"Just not used to it is all. When you look like this, rejection’s not something you experience all that often."

"Yes, _so_ glad you’ve brought that joke back out. Much funnier the third time. If have to explain that it’s a salsa move _yet again—_ "

"You said ‘I believe I owe you an apology’. The words ‘I’m terribly sorry, Crowley’ never actually crossed your lips. Plumb forgot to apologise."

He grinned. Aziraphale looked a little stunned. Perhaps he was amazed by how perfectly Crowley could imitate him now. Impressionists were a desperate lot, but Crowley had to admit the skillset did come in handy now and again.

"I never."

"You did. Aziraphale Fell; light of foot, mealy of mouth, is it?"

Aziraphale huffed a little, rolling his shoulders. 

"Well, perhaps you’re right. I _should_ apologise properly."

Crowley made a little sweeping hand gesture, as if to say _I’m waiting_.

"And I shall," he paused. "Once you’ve mastered rejection."

The bark of laughter that escaped Crowley was as shocking to him as it was to Aziraphale. The latter did that thing with his mouth Crowley was beginning to be able to recognise, where he was clearly hiding the world’s biggest grin behind the world’s smallest pout. 

"I want it in writing, then, if we’re negotiating terms."

"You want my apology in writing."

"Yep. Parchment, fancy script, notarised. The works. Bet you’ve got a calligraphy set lying around somewhere, don’t you? What am I saying. Man like you probably owns a _quill_."

Aziraphale coloured slightly. Crowley blinked.

"Do you genuinely have a quill? I was just joking."

"Yes, _hilarious_. Now please, I am begging you, concentrate. Alexa, dear, could you play _Rompe Saraguey_ again? Thank you. Ready, Crowley? Chin up, eyes forward, and off we go."

* * *

Aziraphale’s phone chimed as he was making dinner. He squinted over at it from across the counter, and frowned when he didn’t recognise the number. Very few people contacted him outside of work hours, and those who did knew to call. Contrary to popular opinion, Aziraphale did know _how_ to text, he just detested it, historically, and had come to regard it with something like dread ever since emojis came into vogue. There were so many little pictures, and he didn’t know what they all _meant,_ and some of them had salacious, hidden meanings, and while he was eyeing his phone and getting privately indignant about semiotics his pasta sauce was bubbling angrily. He cursed and turned down the hob. Texting had earned another black mark against it. 

The message was enigmatic.

> [ **9:15PM** ] We need to talk.

Aziraphale stared. He began to type out a response which he felt was fairly thorough. It would have read: _Hello, I’m sorry to be rude, but who is this? My deepest apologies if we are already acquainted; it seems possible that I may have lost your number, somehow. Alternatively, you may have mistyped someone else’s number— happens to me all the time! If we are not acquainted, and if this was not a mistake, then I should like to know how you got my contact information. - Aziraphale Fell._

Except he received another text while he was in the middle of it, and that one read:

> [ **9:20PM** ] You don’t need to type all that  
> [ **9:20PM** ] It’s Anathema Device 

He frowned, and erased the message. 

> How on Earth did you know what I was typing? [ **9:23PM** ]
> 
> [ **9:23PM** ] I didn’t. I just know it was a lot  
> [ **9:23PM** ] There’s a little bubble that appears when you’re composing a message
> 
> Oh! I see now, thank you. [ **9:25PM** ]  
> How did you get this number? [ **9:26PM** ]

That was, possibly, a bit rude. But then, Ms. Device seemed the straightforward type. Perhaps she appreciated directness from others, as well. 

> [ **9:26PM** ] I have my ways.

Hm. Not so straightforward, then. 

> What was it you wished to talk about? [ **9:27PM** ]

Aziraphale saw the bubble she had mentioned, and the little dots that indicated she was writing something appear and disappear. Did that mean something? It was very distracting. He put the phone down and went to stir through his sauce, which was of course when the phone pinged again. 

> [ **9:30PM** ] Crowley thinks we are in cahoots  
> [ **9:30PM** ] And while I was assuring him that we aren’t, I decided we should be   
> [ **9:31PM** ] You two are a team. YOU’RE the other half of that team. How well YOU do is as important as how Crowley does.  
> [ **9:31PM** ] Kinda.

How flattering, to be seen as an essential part of Anthony J Crowley’s career renaissance. Aziraphale rolled his eyes.

> [ **9:31PM** ] Stop that

He almost dropped the phone. 

> [ **9:32PM** ] So with that in mind, I need your help  
> [ **9:32PM** ] I’m trying to get Crowley to take the show as a whole more seriously

Aziraphale snorted. Good luck, he typed, and then deleted it immediately. Not because he was frightened of Ms. Device, he assured himself. 

> And you think I can assist? [ **9** : **34PM** ]
> 
> [ **9:34PM** ] Crowley respects you.

Aziraphale frowned.

> He frequently insults me. [ **9:35PM** ]  
> To my face. [ **9:35PM** ]
> 
> [ **9:36PM** ] Exactly  
> [ **9:36PM** ] Plus you’ve got years and years of experience on this show  
> [ **9:36PM** ] You have specialist knowledge. Not about dance, but all the important stuff  
> [ **9:37PM** ] What the audience go wild for, what the judges are after, who to flatter and who to curtsey at  
> [ **9:37PM** ] If you understand me

Use the insider knowledge he had accrued from years of experience and gossip to his blatant advantage? Forgo his staunch loyalty to good showmanship and fairness and the sanctity of dance, and attempt, in his final year, to game the system that had gamed _him_ for so very long?

The idea had appeal.

> I’m listening. [ **9:38PM** ]
> 
> [ **9:38PM** ] I watch a lot of reality tv, and I’m a quick study  
> [ **9:38PM** ] I want Crowley to do well, and I know the way to do that is to win over the judges and public. He needs to focus on that as much as his footwork  
> [ **9:38PM** ] Find a way to communicate this to Crowley. He’s competitive, as long as he feels like he’s playing against a system rather than another person  
> [ **9:39PM** ] And you might not believe it, but he can be pretty charming when he wants to be  
> [ **9:39PM** ] Just point and shoot

Point and shoot. Very well. Aziraphale could do that, though he was dubious of the power of Crowley’s charm, seeing as he’d never been a recipient of it himself. He began to consider the judges in his head, the unspoken do’s and don’ts for contestants. Maybe he could put together a short presentation. Graphs could be involved, perhaps.

> Thank you, Ms. Device. You have been most helpful. [ **9:41PM** ]  
> I can see why Crowley thinks so highly of you, too. [ **9:41PM** ]

There was another pause, and those bubbles appeared and disappeared several times. Then:

> [ **9:42PM** ] 👀   
> [ **9:42PM** ] Okay   
> [ **9:42PM** ] I’ll be in touch.  
> [ **9:43PM** ] Btw, a watched pot never boils, but a neglected one bubbles over 

Then she sent him a small picture of a pot and a winking face, and while Aziraphale was trying to parse what the eyes and the pot and the btw meant, he smelled burning, and realised that his sauce was utterly ruined. 

* * *

The hairs on the back of Crowley’s neck stood up the moment he walked into the rehearsal space on Wednesday. The lights were all off. A single folding chair was placed in the centre of the polished floor, reflected eerily in the mirrors lining the wall. For a moment he wondered if he’d got the wrong day, and his thrice-weekly dose of humiliation wasn’t due until tomorrow.

“Fell?” he called. If he’d gotten out of bed this morning for nothing, there’d be Hell to pay. He hadn’t changed into his trainers yet, and his boots clicked as he took a few tentative steps inside. There was something about the chair, though. It reminded him of that one scene in _A Clockwork Orange,_ with the headset and the wires and the eye thing. Maybe Aziraphale had given up on traditional teaching methods, and was just going to force-feed him dancing tutorials until a trigger word set him spinning like some kind of balletic _Manchurian Candidate._

He strode into the middle of the room to give the folding chair an experimental kick.

“Crowley!”

He jumped about a foot. At the back of the room, shrouded in darkness, was a pale blob he assumed was Aziraphale. He was fiddling with something on a trolley.

“What the hell are you doing, lurking about over there?” asked Crowley. “Nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“I’m not lurking,” Aziraphale said, or probably Aziraphale said.

“Just loitering, with intent?”

“No. Standing, neutrally, in the dark, as I try to sort out this wretched—oh, drat.”

“What’s with the, y’know.” Crowley waved a hand to encompass the chair, the room, the overall authoritarian chic. 

“You’ll see in a moment. Please, sit down,” Aziraphale said politely.

“Sure, hang on, I just need to text my location to a friend—"

“Sit.”

Crowley sat. The chair was of the kind engineered by Scandinavian designers to be just this side of uncomfortable. He shifted, then shifted again. If Crowley is left in a chair for too long, the chair’s original, intended function begins to lose cohesion, becoming a sort of prop for a body that has never understood a piece of furniture properly in its life. So it was with this Scandinavian number, as Crowley sprawled in it. He rocked on its back legs. 

“So, er. What’s this— _ohshit_ ,” he said as he noticed the projector screen on the wall in front of him. “Aziraphale, I swear, if you’re about to give our performance the home cinema treatment, I’m gone.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, neither of us wants that,” said Aziraphale. “I just thought, perhaps, you could do with some, ah. Education.”

Crowley looked at him blankly. “Education.”

“Yes. We— what are you doing?”

“Looking around for the restraints.”

Aziraphale tutted, and clicked on the projector. Blue light lit up the screen on the wall. Crowley waited for a polite amount of time, before asking, “is there supposed to be something happening?”

“…Yes,” said Aziraphale. “If you’ll, ah. Bear with me a moment—”

Aziraphale began to tap away at the laptop which, now Crowley could see it up close, was probably old enough to vote. Crowley noted that he had a mouse plugged into one of the USB ports, and briefly dissociated.

“There,” said Aziraphale triumphantly. He pressed a key with a flourish, and Crowley watched the light on the projector screen continue to do absolutely nothing at all.

“Have you, er. Plugged the HDMI in properly?” he said, rocking back further in his chair.

“The what?”

“The HMDI. It’s the cable connecting your laptop to the projector.”

“Oh, this little fellow? Yes, I have.”

“Are you sure? Just jiggle it a bit.”

“Crowley, I’m perfectly capable of plugging in a—ah, there we go!” The image on the wall juddered, flickered, and resolved into a projection of Aziraphale’s desktop, which was so crowded with thumbnails that Crowley momentarily thought he was going to throw up. He made an involuntary noise of distress. Aziraphale frowned, extended a foot, planted it firmly on the seat of Crowley’s chair, and brought it back down on all four legs with a _thump._

“Ow.”

“Pay attention,” he said, sternly. “This is important. Or it will be, once I— just a tick,” muttered Aziraphale, and Crowley watched in horror as Aziraphale’s mouse shuddered across the screen and settled on PowerPoint.

“Aziraphale,” said Crowley, faintly, “I know I’ve been a bit of an arse, but you don’t have to do this, I promise, I’ll be good—”

But it was too late. Aziraphale opened a saved file titled “STRICTLY COME DANCING INTRODUCTORY PRESENTATION FOR CROLWEY” and they were off.

Crowley had never liked school, and had developed a sort of defence mechanism whereby if anyone tried to teach him something, his mind would skitter off to focus on literally anything else. He noticed that today, Aziraphale was wearing a pale blue sweater vest in a Fair Isle pattern, a blue tartan bowtie, and beige cord trousers. He was also wearing a jacket of indeterminate fabric, different shade of beige, with a scarf tucked beneath the collar. It all clashed horribly, and made him look to Crowley like a lost Classics professor; or like he’d just emerged from the bowels of the BBC, where he had until recently been trapped in the film reels of a history documentary from the 1970s. To complete this image, Aziraphale took a small, round pair of spectacles from his pocket, and propped them on his nose.

He took his place beside the screen. He had also acquired a ruler from somewhere.

“S _trictly Come Dancing_ first aired on BBC One on the fifth of May 2004, from whence it has enjoyed a long and respected run on national television. It has been exported to over forty countries, including the US and Australia, where it is alternatively titled ‘Dancing With The Stars’. For over—”

“Aziraphale, the information is on the slide. You don’t have to read it out.”

“Ah. I’ll just give you a moment to, um.”

He waited a respectful thirty seconds while Crowley pretended to read the unformatted wall of text that took up half the screen.

“And this is the show’s basic structure,” said Aziraphale.

The _other_ half of the slide showed a blurry jpeg. It looked like this:

“Thirteen episodes, fourteen including Launch Week, with one dance per episode until we move into Week Twelve, or, as I like to call it, the End Times.” He tittered. “Once we’ve whittled down the contestants, those remaining have to do more than one performance— to pad the show out, you understand. But we needn’t worry about that, yet.”

Crowley thought the “yet” was a bit optimistic, but said nothing.

“So in a standard episode, what happens is this:—ah, hold on—"

Aziraphale ran back around to his laptop and hit the space bar. There was a whooshing sound, and a star wipe whisked them on to the next slide. Crowley considered the many, many wrong turns he had taken in his life, all of which, in their inscrutable, unknowable way, had led him to this moment.

“Alright,” said Aziraphale, jogging back around to the screen. “Each show opens with a performance from the professionals. It’s not always the entire cast, but it tends to be most of us— gives us a chance to show off our moves.”

He did a little wiggle.

“We take turns choreographing, tailoring the performances to the needs of the show, playing to our specialities. Adam usually goes for something fast, lots of lifts and drama, he’s very, ah, vigorous. Rafe and Beryl both go for whole-cast waltzing numbers, they're always crowd pleasers. Personally, I like to try and showcase some of the less-appreciated dances, bring a bit of history to the table—or, floor, rather—but I am frequently outvoted. Once I even managed to get them to all agree to a gavotte, but it was firmly dismissed by the showrunners. Something about ‘the wrong image’, although I tried to tell them— yes, Crowley?”

Crowley had raised his hand. “Question,” he said.

“Yes?”

“Is this, at all, relevant to me.”

Aziraphale paused. “I… suppose not,” he admitted.

Crowley wished he’d brought some chewing gum. Or paper, so he could fold some tiny paper aeroplanes and chuck them at Aziraphale’s head. You know, just to relive his misspent youth. 

“Anyway, next, they’ve got to give us all time to get changed into our first costumes, so the hosts come on and chat for a bit."

Crowley shuddered. “Yeah, the witty banter portion of the show, always my favourite. Puns and double entendre. That last host you had was terrible for it, what was he called, B—"

“Shhh!” Aziraphale hissed. He looked wildly about the room. “Don’t say his name!”

Crowley glanced over his shoulder. The room was, of course, empty. He added _inexplicably paranoid_ to his mental dossier on Aziraphale.

“Perhaps this is the right time to introduce a few brief Do’s and Don’ts for contestants. Number one: _Don’t_ mention any previous hosts or judges, especially ones that have, hm, passed. As far as you are concerned, the cast we have now is the cast we have always had.”

“We have always been at war with Eurasia, got it,” said Crowley, wryly.

Aziraphale barrelled on. 

“Banter with the hosts as much as you like, that’s what they’re there for, but exercise some caution with the judges. _Do_ laugh at their jokes, but _don’t_ attempt to one up them unless you're _very_ confident or performing a Hail Mary pass, in which case please send me some sort of signal. We should perhaps work out a system of winks and earlobe touches for this sort of thing. _Do_ accept both praise and criticism gracefully. _Don’t_ , and I mean _don’t_ argue with their scores once given, however much you may disagree. Their word is final. Even if you are completely right, they will hold it against you, and worse, so will the viewing public. You’re as good as out.” 

Bloody hell. Crowley felt like he was training for a debutante ball, not a dancing competition. 

“Speaking of judges, they are introduced next, and this part is _especially_ relevant to you, Crowley, so pay attention.”

Crowley made a show of sitting up straight and folding his hands in his lap. Aziraphale darted over and clicked the space bar again. The slide dissolved in a checkerboard pattern, revealing the face of a woman in her early sixties. Her hair was iron-grey, swept into an elegant chignon. She wore black, and a dark shade of lipstick that, if Crowley had to guess, was probably Chanel _Rouge Coco_ in _Etienne_. If he had to guess. There was a brooch the size of a tangerine pinned to her dress.

“This is Cressida Heathcote-Plumb, our Head Judge. Former ballerina, of what a certain set call “good breeding”. Raised in India, schooled in the foremost _conservatoire_ in France, toured with the Russian ballet—”

“And ended up here,” Crowley mused. “From humble beginnings.”

“She seems unfriendly, but she’s usually fair, and easily impressed with a good foxtrot. She has a real eye for posture, and if you keep letting your arms sag, _Crowley_ , she’s the one who will make a note of it, and rake you across the coals very efficiently and dispassionately.” He paused, and made a small, slightly petulant moue. “She has always hated me.”

“Eh, I think that’s just her face. I bet I can get her to crack a smile.”

Aziraphale looked at him with something like panic.

“Crowley, I mean this with the utmost severity: Do _not_ flirt with her.”

“Alright.” Crowley made up his mind then and there to flirt with her as much as humanly possible.

Aziraphale began to trek back to the laptop, but Crowley saved him the trip and pressed the space bar for him. Aziraphale looked inordinately pleased by this. Crowley felt an uncomfortable warm feeling in his stomach as Aziraphale tugged on his sweater vest to straighten it, turning back to his rogue’s gallery of judges.

“Moving down the table, we next have Stefano.”

The man onscreen was a bright-eyed, energetic-looking man with an expressive face and hands. In the image Aziraphale had picked, he was, for some reason, dressed as John Leguizamo in Baz Luhrmann’s _Romeo and Juliet_ , and had his leg over his head.

“Stefano what?”

Aziraphale looked pained. “Just Stefano. He’s, ah. A character.”

Bit of an understatement. Stefano, from the few parts of the show Crowley had seen, was the most exuberant of the four judges, and also the most annoying. He had a habit of leaping over the judges’ table and making uncomfortable comments about “raw, animal energy”. Crowley had a vague memory of being described as “undulating” by this man, but when he tried to remember Week One in any detail he mostly just saw a howling vortex of anxiety, and stopped.

“Stefano is a stage choreographer, best known for his work on the musical adaptation of the _Italian Job_. You may have heard of it.”

“I have heard of it. Didn’t it win a Tony?”

“It was a slow year.”

“Might have been several Tonys, actually, now I think about it.”

“It was a _slow year_ ,” said Aziraphale, through gritted teeth this time. “Anyway, Stefano will call you out on your enthusiasm, your composure, how well you inhabit the dance, but he will call _me_ out over choreography. He will also say sexually inappropriate things to get an audience reaction, so be prepared for that, but he’s perfectly respectful off-camera.”

“So his job is to be over-enthusiastic and European about it all, basically.”

Aziraphale gave him a pointed look. “If you want to— to pull back the curtain on the grubby machinery of the show, then, yes. It is at least partial exaggeration, I’m sure. I am told he’s very well-paid for it.”

Crowley didn’t doubt it. He clicked to the next slide, and was treated to a transition effect wherein Stefano’s face melted and resolved into that of a young woman in a fluorescent pink dress.

“And this is Victoria Alderton, or Vix, as she’s known. They like to put in a celebrity judge of some kind every few years. Vix actually won the competition a few years back. I don’t know much about her, to be quite honest, other than she put forth a really abysmal jive in her fourth week. She can’t be expected to have much useful advice for us, seeing as her claim to fame before this was reality television.”

“Aziraphale, _we’re_ on reality television.”

There was a pause, as Aziraphale wrestled with this devastating blow to his worldview. “That’s not the point,” he said finally. “She isn’t a dancer, is what I mean. She _seems_ lovely,” he added, hurriedly, “but, well. She’s not…”

“Not a former prima ballerina of the Bolshoi?”

“Quite.”

The thing about Aziraphale, Crowley mused, as his partner began to go off on another tangent, was that he was actually very catty. He had realised this about himself, and put a lot of time and effort and energy into not _seeming_ very catty, but he’d done an imperfect job of it. Crowley found this delightful in a way he would struggle to explain to other people. Maybe it was because Crowley himself was so petty and flawed; it was like he’d caught Aziraphale out, somehow, turned a mirror on him and gone, “see? Not so different, you and I.” Or maybe it was the incongruity of seeing someone with a face like a porcelain cherub act like a total bitch.

Actually, scratch all that, it was definitely that last thing.

He pressed the key to the next slide while Aziraphale was in mid-flow, just for fun. He was rewarded with a scowl, an exasperated _“Really, Crowley,”_ and a tap on the knee from the ruler that briefly made his brain light up like he was a rat hitting an electric buzzer. The slide dissolved, and the face of a man with an expensive-looking haircut and a smarmy expression appeared.

“Our last judge, at the end of the table, is Alex Simon Stokes. He’s the one we want to impress.”

“He’s a prick,” observed Crowley.

“Yes. I mean, no—” he amended hastily, and Crowley grinned to himself, “he’s alright, really. Harsh, but fair. He was, I’ll admit, rather cruel to you last week—”

Crowley flinched. Didn’t need to be reminded of that, thanks.

“—but in general he gives the most useful and honest advice. The public hate him for it, as the public do. But he’s earned his opinion. He’s worked as a professional dancer for twenty years, and he’s still going. Runs a school, now, I believe. He consistently marks the lowest of all four, _but_ ,” and here Aziraphale gestured with the ruler, nearly taking Crowley’s eye out, “—he’s always the first to give his score. If he holds up a ten, you’ll know you’re about to be given the coveted perfect forty. Something I, myself, have sadly never achieved.”

Aziraphale drifted off for a moment, and Crowley felt inexplicably… bad. From what he’d managed to glean from Anathema, this was probably Aziraphale’s last season on the show, and he’d been saddled with a partner that was less of a person and more a series of triangles lashed together. The presentation was daft, but it was obvious that Aziraphale loved being on the show, despite its many (many, _many_ ) faults.

“Ah,” said Aziraphale, glancing at his—fucking hell, _pocket watch_ —"it’s almost lunch. I must have gone on for longer than I realised, I do apologise.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Crowley, and then, because his mouth had apparently decided to abandon his brain and strike out on its own to seek its fortune, “don’t you have one slide, left, though?”

Aziraphale paused. Crowley watched the little debate taking place in that blond noggin. “I—yes,” he said. “But it’s really not that important. I suppose I would very much like to have finished it, but…”

Aziraphale hesitated significantly. Crowley sighed.

“Go on, then,” he said, and hit the space bar.

Aziraphale smiled, bright and a bit startling, and straightened the spectacles perched on the tip of his nose.

“So, this is the plan for the next few weeks— provided we stay in, of course. This week is the Salsa, of course, and next week is Movie Week, for which, if you’re amenable, I thought we could do the Charleston? I’m really very fond, and I have just the _perfect_ song choice, I’ve been thinking about it since last year, practically…”

Aziraphale went on, and Crowley, who was dedicated to never learning anything but had somehow managed to absorb something today regardless, leaned back and disengaged completely from the presentation, instead watching Aziraphale’s expressions and the movements of his hands— as you’d idly watch a bee, or a lost tourist, or some other erratic, unknowable thing.

* * *

Something happened to time on that Saturday, at least from Aziraphale’s perspective. It just wandered off, like a child disengaging their sticky palm from his in the middle of a shopping centre. One minute he was shuffling blearily to the kitchen for his morning tea, the next he was doing his warm-up stretches with several of the other professionals, and Adam was recounting Eve’s progress with the breathless fervour of a man who doesn’t realise he’s already _tête_ over toes in love. After that it all got a bit muddy again; costume, makeup, lights, noise, vague irritation as Shadwell spent an unusually long time checking his person for exploding pens. Later, he would barely remember saying hello to Crowley, let alone dancing with him. When he came to, they were in front of the Judges panel, and the verdict did not seem favourable.

“If you act the way you dance, darling, no wonder nobody’s heard anything from you for the last decade,” smirked Alex Simon Stokes. There was an equal mix of laughter and boos from the audience. 

“I get by on my good looks, mostly,” grinned Crowley, and Aziraphale almost couldn’t see the muscle twitching in his jaw.

“You ignore Alex, babes,” interrupted Vix, and the audience were sent into predictable raptures at that. “I know what it’s like out there. Just ignore the haters, yeah?” More applause. Lord, she was going to get on Aziraphale’s wick, this season. Crowley gave her an odd little bow that was, actually, rather charming. 

“Well, what you lack in posture, footwork, technical expertise or enthusiasm, you at least make up for in fluidity,” said Cressida Heathcote-Plumb. “A little work on control and you could have a lovely, sinuous movement about you. The hips especially,”

“Ah, that’s just for you, Cress,” said Crowley, and winked. The audience hooted. 

_What did I bloody say, you wretch,_ thought Aziraphale, dimly, but when he emerged from the fog again Crowley’s careless charm was gone. 

“ _Shit, shit, shit._ ”

Pulled back from his thoughts by the small string of whispered, sibilant curses, Aziraphale blinked to right himself. He realised with a jolt they were in the middle of the dance off, he’d lost time _again_ , and Crowley was trying with all his might to not swear any louder lest his microphone pick it up over the sounds of the _Strictly_ band murdering poor dear Héctor Lavoe.

He absently led Crowley into a break step and tried to reconstruct where they’d been. They had eleven points. They had been sent to the Bottom Two, which meant the public, if they liked Crowley’s cheek, didn’t like it well enough to vote for them in the hours between their initial performance and now. They had to hope that the Judges liked them well enough, despite it. Goodness knows they would not be saved on the strength of their dancing.

“ _Shit!”_

Crowley was a little louder that time, and Aziraphale felt a fresh wave of guilt wash over him. The salsa was, by this point, just perfunctory movements for him. He could do it in his sleep. He practically _was_ sleepwalking, right here on stage, in the middle of the bloody dance off. 

Aziraphale led Crowley into the initial steps for a full rejection, and Crowley, bless him, managed the damned thing. He looked like he was going to throw up on his sheer black shirt, but he _managed_ it. 

Aziraphale led them into the next step, paying attention to Crowley _in toto_ now. If Aziraphale had been allowed to drift so completely in the interminable hours since their first dance and their second, it was only because Crowley had permitted it. Crowley would allow insults, and jabs, and unfair criticism, but he would not allow himself to be ignored— not unless he wanted to be. A change had taken place, one that Aziraphale could not immediately feel the shape of. Crowley’s silence had become determination, his despondency a manic sort of energy that he was apparently willing to burn out with all on his own. Aziraphale was still only a novice at understanding Crowley, but the man’s whole body seemed to be saying, _if you’ve gotta go, go with style._

It was just such a pity that he didn’t have the technical skill to back up the sentiment. 

As though to prove him wrong, Crowley—contrary creature that he was—followed Aziraphale through a suave and didn’t trip up on a beat where he had, until this moment, tripped up every time before. His eyes widened, and his face completely _lit up_. He pulled off the rest of the steps in an entirely passable way, and a grin caught on the corner of his mouth, tugging it upwards. 

_Never mind going with style,_ Aziraphale thought with sudden clarity, _we’re not going_ anywhere _._

He’d spent all week convincing Crowley to trust him, making him believe he knew what he was talking about, teaching him salsa steps and hammering in the details of the show, but at what point had he ever trusted Crowley? At what point had he believed, _really_ believed, that Crowley would pull this off? If he had, he would never have drifted like this. Aziraphale had let himself be far too distracted for far too long, and it ended now. He was going to give it some welly, he was going to go all out, and he was going to help Crowley convince the judges that they deserved to stay for at least another week. Aziraphale grabbed Crowley’s hand—reclaiming, as he did so, the sticky fingers of that wayward urchin, Time—and the burst of inspired energy propelled him forward through the footwork as he spun the other man into what he immediately recognised was their final position.

The dance was over. Aziraphale had screwed his courage to the sticking place, and Birnam Wood was already upon Dunsinane. It was too late. 

“Crowley, you—” Aziraphale whispered, once they were spirited off to the wings to watch Mary and Rafe, their compatriots in the Bottom Two, take to the floor and attempt a paso doble for the second time that evening. “I just wanted to say, if this is the end, then—”

“Don’t get soppy on me, now,” Crowley said, staring out at the dancefloor and resolutely not looking at Aziraphale. He was still shaking with adrenaline. Very well. Aziraphale knew how tenderness deployed at the wrong moment could feel like a blade. A different approach, then.

“I was just going to ask if I might hold on to Alexa.”

Crowley snorted, and Aziraphale was relieved to see an echo of a grin return to the other man’s face.

“Well, split custody would only mess her up, I s’pose. Start getting confused between Louis Armstrong and Lou Reed.”

“We can’t have that.”

“No, we can’t,” Crowley stretched a little, shaking off the last of those nerves, before finally looking over at him. “Look, don’t make a big deal out of this, but. Thanks.”

Aziraphale blinked.

“Thanks?”

“I _said_ don’t make a big deal out of it. I just. You tried, you know? None of these bastards can say you didn’t try.”

“Crowley—”

" _Come on_ you two, haven’t got all night."

The runner Aziraphale found a little ruder than the rest (on account of how rude she was) had come to grab them. Mary and Rafe were finished. Time to get back out there and face the music.

***

In the end, it was Mary—and not the judges—who saved them both.

Mary Hodges had, in her second dance of the evening, done exactly what Mary Hodges was famous for. She had chattered. Constantly. Throughout the entire thing. Nerves had gotten the better of her and she had narrated the _entire_ dance in a flighty, giggle-laden tone, much to the dismay of her partner who tried his best to salvage the intended mood of the piece. But there was nothing for it. No matter how terribly Crowley and Aziraphale had performed, the judges couldn’t be seen to excuse such _blatant_ disregard for the etiquette of the dancefloor. Mary and Rafe were out, and Crowley and Aziraphale were still in, if only by the skin of their teeth. The rest of the dancers flooded the floor to hug Rafe and a Mary who remained cheerfully loquacious in the face of her imminent departure. 

“Oh, it’s just been such an honour, honestly! Time of my life, oooh, just like the song from _Dirty Dancing_! Are any of you going to be doing that for next week? Movie Week! Imagine, me, missing out on doing Movie Week! Well, now that I think about it, that’s my favourite one to watch, so you know, I’m actually quite glad I’ll just be able to stay home and see it on the telly instead!”

The director mercifully called cut, the cameras stopped rolling, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Anathema appeared from somewhere near where the band were packing away to bundle Crowley off and get him home before Aziraphale had a chance to strategise for their rehearsals for the week. He never slept properly after the Saturday night recording, and he had thought he might have been able to grab at least an hour with Crowley to build upon that determination he’d seen spark in the other man’s eyes that night. Aziraphale had decided, then and there, looking into Crowley’s unshaded face as he’d awkwardly thanked him for what Aziraphale now considered his frankly piss poor efforts as a tutor. He’d decided that they were going to try to— no, not _try_. 

They were absolutely _going to_ win this whole bloody thing. 

Aziraphale took his time saying goodnight to Tracy, who always stayed back to watch him dance no matter how late it got, before changing out of his salsa attire and retrieving his belongings from the Green Room. Just as he slipped on his jacket, he felt his phone buzz insistently in his pocket. _Nine_ unread messages? From an unknown number? That couldn’t possibly be right. Once was a coincidence, twice in one week was downright spooky. He opened the thread with caution that quickly gave way to a sort of bemusement that almost felt, god help him, a little _fond._

> [ **11:42PM** ] sry, got dragged home b4 we cld talk properly  
> [ **11:42PM** ] a. far 2 powerful  
> [ **11:43PM** ] both in terms of ctrl over my career & psychically  
> [ **11:43PM** ] *physically  
> [ **11:44PM** ] think u & i need 2 arrange better plan of attack. y/n?   
> [ **11:52PM** ] at least alexa won’t bcome child of divorce statistic   
> [ **11:52PM** ] ...yet  
> [ **11:57PM** ] tempt u 2 mini victory brunch tmr? my treat  
> [ **12:23AM** ] this is crowley btw

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy saturday from mort & marginalia! we return to you once again with this nonsense with the hope that in these shitty times we can provide a little button that you slam to make serotonin come out.
> 
> the authors would like to dedicate this chapter to [naniiebim](https://naniiebimworks.tumblr.com), a friend and illustrator who really gets us.


	4. Week Three — The Charleston

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **7.00pm** — Determined not to find themselves in the Dance Off again, Crowley and Aziraphale decide it’s time to attempt strategy. A tactical brunch sees the birth of an Arrangement, a Madame is drafted into subterfuge, and an interview moves the battle to a new front. All’s fair in love and dance in a turning point of the campaign: Movie Week.

“So,” said Aziraphale.

“So,” said Crowley.

They looked at each other over the table. Their server did a walk-by, sensed the vibe, and in display of tact and mercy belonging to the best of his profession, offered to get them more chai. Aziraphale resolved to double his tip.

“Nice place,” said Crowley.

“It is, yes,” said Aziraphale.

“Good a spot as any for a war brunch,” added Crowley.

They were in Dishoom, a popular lunch and dinner spot that boasted excellent chai and delicious Bombay-style dishes. Aziraphale had chosen it with the care of a tactician. It was crowded enough to provide cover, but not so crowded as to prevent conversation. It was trendy enough that it wouldn’t be unusual to see two decreasingly minor celebrities there, but not so trendy that people hung about outside. It appealed to Crowley’s love of good coffee and Aziraphale’s love of good food, and, crucially, he had really, _really_ fancied a Wrestler’s Naan.

Unlike the studio, this felt like neutral ground. They had snagged a corner booth, where their only immediate neighbours were an empty table reserved for six and a large number of potted plants that Crowley inexplicably scowled at as he sat down. 

“I’ve always said well-fed is well-armed,” remarked Aziraphale. 

“Is that an actual saying?”

“I don’t think so. I think perhaps I made it up.”

“It’s a good one. Could put it on a tea towel or something.”

Crowley’s hand tapped nervously on his coffee cup. He had his sunglasses on today, out in public, and Aziraphale was momentarily irritated at the barrier. He resisted the urge to reach across the table and still his hand. Last night he had slept worse than usual, going over and over his interactions with Crowley over the past few weeks, where he had failed, how he was to build trust on such an unstable foundation. In the end, he had decided to be direct in his intentions. 

“I want to win this season,” Aziraphale said, at exactly the same time that Crowley said, “I want to try actually winning this thing.” 

They both laughed awkwardly. 

“Anathema?” asked Crowley.

“Anathema.”

“Thank god she became a publicist. If she’d gone into espionage she’d have the world on its knees.”

Some of the tension Aziraphale had been lugging about all week eased. It seemed they were on the same page, after all. Before they could speak further, their food arrived. He eyed Crowley’s plate curiously— he had never seen the man consume matter, and it would be interesting to see if Crowley actually ate what he ordered.

“Anathema suggested to me,” Aziraphale said, putting his napkin across his lap, “that I might like to get back at the management that has consistently undermined and undervalued me.”

Crowley snorted. “And she suggested to _me_ that perhaps the way to do this is by putting the work in, dancing my little black heart out, and beating the fuckers at their own game.”

“They _do_ expect you to be voted out this week,” noted Aziraphale. 

“They do. I want to make it impossible for them.” Crowley leaned forward. “I was thinking, you and me, we need to strategise. We need to come up with a _plan_.”

“You want me to make you a competent dancer by Saturday?” Aziraphale couldn’t resist shooting him a look “Crowley, I’m not a miracle worker.”

“First of all, _catty_ , and second, I’m not talking about that.” 

Aziraphale, tucking into his Wrestler’s Naan, gestured with his fork for Crowley to continue. 

“You and I both know that winning isn’t just about ability, right? It’s all political. Like, take that PowerPoint you made.” _The one you roundly ignored_ , added Aziraphale. “There’s a whole… _etiquette_ to this show I’ve no bloody clue about, but you do. You can keep us right, help me play to my strengths. Get the public on our side. Make _us_ the Nation’s Favourite.” He leaned towards Aziraphale, and his hair caught the morning sun, turning it a lovely shade of copper. He really was rather handsome, Aziraphale admitted; that could work to their advantage. 

“That approach will only get us so far,” he said, pragmatically. “Once we pass the halfway point of the competition, ability actually does matter.”

Crowley waved a careless hand. “Then we’ll have to put in some extra rehearsals.”

Aziraphale felt his stomach flip, not unpleasantly. “That’s against the rules,” he murmured.

Crowley was eyeing him behind his glasses, he just knew it. “Sod the rules. As far as I’m concerned, they broke them first. Not telling us about the whole gimmick thing gives us carte blanche, right? It’s like— they violated the Geneva Convention so now we get to.”

“That’s not how the Geneva Convention works,” said Aziraphale reflexively, but he privately agreed. There were codes of conduct and decency and sportsmanship that had already been violated; a few extra rehearsals were hardly comparable. He would have to think of a way to sneak them into the studio a few more nights a week, but it was doable. 

Crowley looked at him expectantly.

“I’ve never really broken the rules before,” Aziraphale said, demurely. He had to at least pretend to put up some resistance. He saw one of Crowley’s eyebrows rise above the frame of his glasses.

“Well, lucky for you, I’m an old hand.” Crowley shot him a grin that was just shy of indecent. “Promise you’ll like it.”

Aziraphale felt himself flush, and was privately mortified. Perhaps this was the charm Anathema had been talking about. Having it used on him was, he decided, a deeply unnerving experience. “Put that away,” he said sternly, pointing at Crowley’s grin. “I’ll look into finding us somewhere more clandestine to rehearse—” “ _Clandestine,_ ” Crowley mouthed, “—but in return I need you to promise me something.”

“Oh, yeah?”

Aziraphale had thought about this, too, in the early hours of that morning— how to extract this promise without causing offence or shattering the goodwill he and Crowley had fostered over the past few weeks. They had not discussed the play, or the conversation a decade ago; the time to do so, as far as Aziraphale was concerned, had now passed. Yet Aziraphale worried. History had a bad habit of repeating itself.

“I want you to give me your word that we will see this through, no matter how it turns out.” He swallowed, briefly setting aside his cutlery to show how serious he was. “You have the ability to quit at any time, without repercussions. I don’t. I’m over the hill. My best chance at having a career after this year depends on my retaining the goodwill and endorsement of the show. You said you’re serious about winning, and so am I, but if we are to have any chance, _any chance at all_ , we need equal dedication. We need to be a partnership. A proper one.”

For a minute, Crowley was silent. Aziraphale worried that perhaps he had been wrong; perhaps he had poked at an old wound that was just beginning to close.

“Alright,” said Crowley. “I do need to ask you something, though.” There was something about the forced-casual way he said it, and the fact that he was finally tucking into his kejriwal as if to prove how completely relaxed he was made Aziraphale pay attention. 

“This week’s a themed one. Movie Week. We’re doing the Charleston to that song from the new Poppins job, yeah?” Aziraphale nodded. “Well, I want to wear a dress.”

Aziraphale blinked. Of all the things he had expected Crowley to demand from him, that had not been on the list.

“Of course,” he said, without thinking about it. Crowley nodded, still overly casual. He carried on eating his kejriwal without seeming to really taste it. “Right,” he said, “good,” and then nothing else. Aziraphale decided to chance physical contact; he reached over and tapped Crowley’s wrist.

“You are of course free to have input into our outfits, choreography, strategy— I was serious, when I spoke of a partnership. But you know I’d like to ask why, in this instance. Besides, I would hate to deprive you of making the argument I am sure you have planned.”

Crowley snorted. To Aziraphale’s surprise, he took off his sunglasses. 

“Alright, yeah,” he said, smiling. His golden eyes crinkled at the corners. “I did have a little speech in my back pocket in case you kicked up a fuss. I’d probably have walked, actually.” He shrugged. “Look, I’m not going to get into a massive discussion on gender with you in the middle of a _Dishoom_ , but I need you to know that— the dress thing isn’t a joke, right? And it’s not drag, either. It’s part of who I am. They wanted to put a queer person on the show, well, I’m a queer person. Same pronouns, same Crowley, but. Y’know. I contain multitudes.”

He sat back, arms folded. His lip twitched. “And don’t do that. I can see by your face you’re about to _thank me for trusting you with this part of myself_ or whatever and we’re _not_ doing that.”

“I was going to do no such thing,” said Aziraphale, dabbing at the corners of his mouth with a napkin. “I was going to say that you can wear as many dresses as you like, but if you interfere with the aesthetics I have planned I _will_ bust a nut.”

Abruptly, Crowley choked, and the piece of kejriwal must have gone down the wrong way because he frantically gulped down the rest of his coffee and the glass of water by Aziraphale’s plate. Aziraphale half-rose, in case his recurring nightmare had come to pass and he needed to attempt the _heimlich_ in a crowded restaurant, but Crowley waved him back to his seat, wheezing and spluttering.

“Bust a—” he began, then coughed. “Out of curiosity, just what do you think that means?”

“Lose one’s temper, of course. I imagine it’s from a similar origin as 'blow a gasket', but— what’s so funny?”

Crowley laughed. “Nothing, nothing. Just, do me a favour and don’t use that phrase on anyone else, alright?” He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye; whether it was from laughter or asphyxiation Aziraphale could not tell. “Bloody hell. Big day for me. Swear an oath, come out again, nearly choke to death on cheesy bread.”

If they had known each other better, maybe Aziraphale _would_ have said thank you, or at least tried to be more genuine in the moment. Unlike Crowley, Aziraphale would also have been quite happy to get into a _massive discussion of gender_ over brunch. It described much of his thirties. But he really was beginning to get the hang of his partner and would hazard a guess that, rather than listen to any attempts at verbalised support, Crowley would rather he had choked.

“Anathema wants to start setting up interviews as soon as possible,” said Crowley. “She wants us to do a joint one, as soon as you’re free?”

“I’m free whenever it is convenient. You both have my number.” _Somehow._ “I take it this means we have an agreement?”

“Shit, yeah, I forgot about that.” Crowley extended a hand across the table. “Partners?”

“Partners.” Aziraphale shook. Crowley’s hand was cool in his, despite the ambient temperature of the restaurant. 

They spent the rest of their meal strategising, and by the end of it they had a four-point plan of attack for the rest of the week. Crowley scribbled it down on a napkin filched from the reserved table. 

“C’mon, let’s get a couple espresso martinis to celebrate our deeply professional union.”

“Crowley, it’s _eleven in the morning_.”

“I’m not hearing a no, though, is the thing.”

“Very well, I will have one. _Just_ one.”

“Ahh, you’re no fun.”

* * *

####  **_STEP 1 : BECOME THE POPPINS_ **

* * *

It was all well and good to tell your dancing partner you suddenly wanted a costume change with six days to go until the day of the show. It was another thing entirely to tell the woman who’d already made an entire costume for you that actually, sorry, but could you whip up another one to a very particular set of instructions and also not ask too many questions or tell any of your bosses? If it had been anyone else Crowley would have been chuffed at the opportunity to cause a little chaos in the assembly line but—unfortunately—he really did like Tracy. He’d picked up the bill at brunch with only a few completely token protests on Aziraphale’s part and then, instead of heading back to the flat where Anathema was likely to be waiting for him with all sorts of smug _I told you so’s_ regarding his partner and how on-board he was with Crowley’s genderfuckery, he’d gotten a taxi to the studio instead. The sooner he gave the Madame a heads up about the plan, the better. If he was going to out himself yet again on national television, he wanted to make sure he gave her enough time to make something he would actually look good in while doing so.

 _If she agrees to make it at all,_ Crowley thought, and clutched the napkin he’d stuffed into his pocket like a good luck charm. 

The door to costume was closed, but the Madame was definitely in. Even on the approach in the corridor he could hear her, belting out a song Crowley couldn’t place but was certain was a show tune of some sort. Aziraphale would have known. He knocked and the singing abruptly stopped.

“Coming, coming, just a minute, I— oh, Mister C! What a pleasant surprise.”

She ushered him in, plopping him in one of the plush chairs at the rear of the room and making some excuses about the place looking a state, and how if she’d had more notice he was coming she would have put on a nicer wig. She lifted the needle off the gramophone and Crowley took a moment to check out the name of the record she’d been playing.

“ _La Cage aux Folles?_ Cage of the mad women— bit on the nose, isn’t it?”

“Anthony J Crowley!” She sounded positively scandalised, which was a reaction Crowley did like to induce, but he normally preferred being aware of exactly why he was scandalising someone. “You mean to tell me you don’t know what this is?”

“Er, a musical?”

She tutted softly.

“Takes all sorts in this industry I suppose. Anyway love, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Crowley felt a little wrong-footed at this point. He thought he’d have more time to build up to the actual asking part of this little visit. He’d been fully willing to go on about the musical and who, exactly, put these women into cages rather than offering them the number of a good therapist, but she’d firmly put a stop to that handy little stalling tactic. He drummed his fingers against his knee and had a few false starts at answering her truthfully, before something that looked like a good excuse for further prevarication caught his eye.

“Madame Tracy,” Crowley grinned, leaning over to the coffee table and plucking a cut-glass tumbler from atop a coaster shaped like a crystal ball. “Are you running some sort of sweatshop speakeasy in here?”

She looked about as nervous as he felt. It was a bit of a mean trick, but Crowley instantly found himself feeling much better now that they were back on even ground.

“Scotch, is it?” He held up the glass and had a sniff. “Oh, _good_ scotch too. Good on you, gotta treat yourself every now and again. Come on, stop looking like that. You can’t possibly think I’m some sort of narc, no? I was only going to ask if this lovely lipstick-stained glass possibly had a twin— think this conversation would be easier on me if I had a drink.”

Tracy looked heavenwards as if asking for strength. She must have found some—no idea where from, Crowley had never gotten any results from praying for anything in his life—because she met his eyes once more with the hint of a smirk playing across her face.

“Call my beautiful studio a sweatshop again and all the charm in the world won’t save you, but alright, love. I need you to promise me not a word of this leaves this room.”

“Scout’s honour. Well, was never a scout, but you get the picture. Someone’s honour. One time BAFTA Nominee’s honour, how about that?” 

Madame Tracy’s smirk turned coquettish as she wheeled a little cocktail trolley from out behind the layers upon layers of fabric hung on the far wall, a small “ _ta-da!”_ accompanying its reveal. Unlike its out-of-commission cousin that only housed the ancient gramophone, this one was fully operational. She wiggled the decanter at him and he waved a hand at her to indicate she should pour away. 

“I feel like I’m enabling you. Or you’re enabling me. Someone’s being enabled here,” Crowley said, even as he took the offered glass.

“Oh, give over. It’s Sunday and I’m up to my ears in bloody taffeta while the rest of the world enjoys a fry up and a bit of rumpy pumpy. Let an old woman have her pleasures.”

“Old! You’re not a day over twenty-five, surely.”

“Oh Mister C, you’re _incorrigible_ , honestly! Look, I know you’re here to ask me for a favour, and while I’m happy to have a bit of tipple with you I do have work to finish up today. So, out with it.”

“You knew? How?” Crowley looked down at the coaster again, and had a momentary flash of panic. He couldn’t have two supposedly-psychic women in his life, he barely managed to survive the one.

“Mister Aziraphale.” She fished out her phone and held it out for him to see. “Sent me this about half an hour ago.”

> [ **12:15PM** ] Good afternoon my dear! Crowley may be on his way to discuss with you some changes we wish to make to his costume for this week and potentially this may affect other weeks going forwards; there are certain things about this that I believe Crowley should be the one to share with you should he so choose, but please rest assured that whatever he wishes to wear I am fully in support of as long as it’s on theme and doesn’t cause you too much anguish to sew. I’ll see you tonight at the agreed time?

This message was fine, though it clearly hadn’t gotten the memo regarding brevity and its relation to the soul of wit. The message that followed it, however, looked like it had decided brevity was the soul of something much, much filthier. Aziraphale appeared to have intentionally sent to Tracy the tongue emoji, then the peach emoji, and finally—horrifically—the three water drops emoji. 

“What am I looking at here.”

“ _Peach melba_ , I hope. We’re meant to be going for dinner at the Savoy tonight, he’s been very excited about it. I don’t know who’s been teaching him to use emojis, but I’m telling you, they’ve taken years off my life.”

Crowley had an inkling he knew exactly who’d been teaching Aziraphale to use emojis, and he was planning on having words with her about it very soon. Also, not that it was currently important, but brunch at Dishoom _and_ dinner at the Savoy on the same day? He had no idea Aziraphale was such a fussy little foodie. He’d have to file that away for later, might come in handy for bribes. 

“Right, that’s. Yep. Tell you what, let’s move past that. He’s covered most of the bases, so this’ll be quick. I want a full costume change for this week’s show and I wanted to see if you’d be able to manage it.”

“I’m sure I can _manage_ it, but I have to say, it is a little unusual. Aren’t you two doing the Poppins number anymore? I thought your matching lamplighter suits looked very handsome, Mister Aziraphale was especially happy with both of them.”

“The suits were fine, they were—” Crowley tried to think of how to make _predictably on theme_ sound like a compliment. He wasn’t knocking Tracy’s handiwork whatsoever, she did a bang up job each and every week, but she was a woman who committed to an aesthetic and soldiered on with it through thick and thin. Aziraphale’s outfits, no matter the fabric or make-up of the garments, were always in creams or whites, blues and golds, the latter of which was the only colour that crossed over with Crowley’s. He was otherwise dressed in blacks or greys and reds. Usually the dancing couples on the show had colour schemes that were a little more analogous, but Tracy and Aziraphale had explained early on that just wouldn’t do for their costumes. Crowley had stopped listening when they pulled out the vision boards and just agreed to leave them to it.

“They were _what_ , exactly?”

Madame Tracy raised an eyebrow, looking more ready to fight as the seconds ticked by and Crowley weighed up how much of himself to give away here. Even though things had been uncommonly easy for him to talk to Aziraphale about, it still took its toll to show yourself to another person and say _this is me, take it or leave it._ Nevermind having to do it twice in one day, Crowley hadn’t done this much emotional lifting twice in the last _five years_. He bought himself a little more time by looking around the opulent room, from the sequins to the gilded mirror frames to the record she’d just been playing and finally his gaze landed on the cocktail trolley, their shared little secret on a Sunday afternoon.

 _Fuck it_ , he thought.

“I want to be Mary.”

“Come again?”

“For the— for the number. I wanted to ask you to make me a Poppins dress. Or a skirt and a top, or, just. Look, I’d leave the specifics of it up to you, you’d be the one making it, but that’s— that’s what I want. If you’ll do it.”

“Right. Well. A dress.” Tracy downed the last of her drink. “Fancy that.” Took a moment or two. Looked apologetic. _Shit_. “I have to tell you, Mister C, this is a bit awkward.” 

Crowley was on his feet in an instant, abandoning his glass on the table where it made a horrible clattering sound as he missed balancing it properly on the coaster. Tracy winced and Crowley did his best to ignore it, plastering the most genuine grin he could muster up at this moment onto his face.

“Yeah, no, course. Daft idea, really, don’t know why I even asked. Just show myself out, shall I, let you get back to your—what was it?—toile? Taffeta? Something with a tee. Forget I said anything, not a problem.”

He got as far as the costume racks before she caught up with him, bustling around in front of him and spreading her arms wide to block him going any further.

“Stop right there!”

“Tracy, it’s fine, I—”

“I’m sorry,” Tracy said, voice calm and soothing, lowering her hands like she was dealing with a skittish creature. “Sorry, love, that came out all wrong. I’d say I hope you know me better than to think I’d ever be so— but, I suppose we don’t really know each other all that well, do we? And here’s you telling me something important, and me responding like that. No wonder you tried to leg it!”

She gently took his arm, her hand resting in the crook of his elbow, and started to walk him closer to the veritable forest of hangers.

“Now, let’s you and me try that again, eh? The only reason I said it was awkward was because I didn’t want you to think I’m the sort to make assumptions about a person when I showed you this.”

Tracy deposited him on a plinth that usually held a mannequin, and started rifling through what he recognised was his costume rack. She kept muttering to herself things along the lines of “ _know it’s around here somewhere, bear with me, love”_ until she let out a triumphant little _ha!_ and drew back from the rack, pulling a hanger with her and presenting it to him with a proud flourish which, upon inspection, Crowley wasn’t quite sure the thing she was holding up deserved.

It wasn’t his dress. At least, not yet. What it was, to Crowley’s untrained eye, was a mess. Most of it was that dressmaking fabric that he didn’t know the name of, off-white with little pencil markings and pins holding it in place. The few test pieces of proper fabric that had been attached to this ghostly frame weren’t his colours, Madame-assigned or otherwise. These ran a little closer to the look Blunt sported in the film for this number; light pinks, purples and whites. Analogous to Aziraphale’s suit, sure, but that wasn’t _them_ , and it certainly wasn’t him, but it was something. It was a start. He had to ask.

“Why do you have that?” 

“I told you, when you first popped in for your measurements,” she motioned for him to stand, which he did. A pencil was suddenly in her hand where no pencil had been before—Crowley didn’t want to know where she’d pulled it out from—and she held the skeleton of the dress against his chest, starting to make little notes on the off-white bits. “I’ve always got a few costumes made up before partners get announced. They’re never fully complete, because you can’t know until you get someone into them, but the basics are easy to sort out. Saves loads of time down the line, especially with Mister Aziraphale’s partners. Had a private grieving session for some of the ideas I threw out once it turned out to be someone who might not take too kindly to me shoving him in a frock every so often.”

Tracy turned her focussed gaze from his chest upwards to wink at him.

“Seems I threw myself a pity party for nothing, eh?” She shuffled him over to the circle of mirrors, nudging him to hold the gown in place while she started to gather his hair up on top of his head. “Right, this’ll be an easy job. Get you a nice pair of heels— got a girl who knows where to get the big sizes from, don’t you worry about that. Comfy as anything. Style your hair up, maybe a hat? _Ooh_ , or one of those lovely half-veils, netting, very stylish. I’m sure I’ve got a brolly kicking around in the prop bucket that’ll be just the ticket, too! So,” she blew an errant orange curl out of her eyes, finally stopping her fussing at him to take a moment and study the picture in the mirror. “What do you reckon, Mister C?”

It was a mess, sure. But it was a mess with potential. Crowley grinned.

“Does it come in black?”

* * *

####  **_STEP 2: SHOWCASE OUR WORK ETHIC BEHIND THE SCENES_ **

* * *

Aziraphale, anyone who knew him well enough would tell you, was not one for adapting to something new at the drop of a hat.

He liked the comfort of the familiar. To be truly _settled in_ to a routine, to know the path he was treading like the back of his hand. It was why he liked dancing so much. There were set patterns to footwork, rhythms that repeated themselves ad infinitum throughout time. Once you knew them it was near-impossible to get it wrong, to fall out of step, if one were careful and considerate enough. Of course there was always room for a quick bit of improvisation, but at the end of the day a jive—danced well—was still a jive. He never had to worry about looking foolish with a structured routine in place. He knew how each and every dance would shape his body, how his curving lines would follow the flow of the beat and how the feeling of knowing that he’d gotten it right made him feel very, very good.

The Charleston was not, at present moment, making him feel very good.

It wasn’t that they were as bad as previous weeks— far from it in fact. Crowley, now that he’d had the fire lit under him, really was trying to give it his all. On Monday he’d turned up to rehearsal an entire half an hour early and scared the living daylights out of Aziraphale. This was mostly because he’d been leaning out the studio’s window, having a rarely-indulged-in cigarette to calm his nerves and had been so wrapped up in the pleasure of it he hadn’t heard Geoff’s warning buzz that someone was on the approach. He’d tossed the half smoked tab, still-lit, to the gravel below in a panic and felt guilty about littering the rest of the day. Aziraphale was certain Crowley could smell the smoke on him, but if his partner noticed he was kind enough not to mention it. He’d been a little too consumed by dismay upon realising just how fast the Charleston actually was. _“I just thought it would be a bit of kicking, maybe a jazz hand or two”_ Crowley had whined, apparently having been confident that he and Lin-Manuel Miranda had a similar level of ability when it came to dancing. Coming to the studio to find that not only would there be complex choreography, but that he would be expected to do it at the same speed as if someone had hit fast-forward on the DVD had him laying on the floor after just an hour, gasping for breath and begging for a reprieve. Aziraphale had only taken a very small amount of pleasure in standing over him and announcing with nary a note of pity or breathlessness in his voice that, yes, the Charleston _was_ a fast dance. It simply wouldn’t work as it was— he’d had to instruct the band to change the accents, which were now on the two and the four to make it more jazzy. This was standard procedure; a little bit of fiddling with the tempo and arrangement to make sure the song choice fit perfectly. The show did it a few times a season, Aziraphale often the instigator. _Why not just pick songs that fit in the first place_ , asked Crowley, but Aziraphale pretended not to hear him.

The rest of the rehearsal, once Crowley had gotten over his fit of pique at tempo-based betrayal, hadn’t been a complete disaster but by the end of Monday Aziraphale couldn’t help but feel a little disheartened. Their Strategy Brunch had clearly gone to their heads; delusions of grandeur brought on by the espresso martinis, no doubt. What they were planning on doing—what _Crowley_ was planning on doing—deserved the very best out of both of them, and this was by no means their best. To make matters worse, this number contained their first lift of the season. It wasn’t until the very end of their dance because Aziraphale knew if it all went pear-shaped it would throw Crowley off for the rest of the routine, and it was only a simple shoulder sit, but it was nevertheless preying on both their minds. They were still too stiff, always just a fraction off-beat, always bumping into each other when they should be apart or straying too far when they needed to be closer. So, although Aziraphale wasn’t much for changing the tried-and-tested routine that he’d fallen into with his partners over the years, he decided that their rehearsal on Tuesday would take a little detour.

“Morning,” Crowley greeted him, holding out the customary tea he’d taken to fetching from the cart alongside his own gargantuan coffee. Aziraphale still hadn’t _quite_ the heart to tell him how abysmal the brew was there. Lord knew Crowley didn’t need anything else to feel discouraged about. “Shall we get right into it then? I’ve been thinking, and I reckon we should try and do the lift today. I know you wanted to wait until we had some more of the basic steps down, but I’m still not entirely convinced you actually _can_ lift me up, so the sooner we try it and get it blacklisted from the routine the happier I’ll be.”

“I would be very glad for the opportunity to prove just how wrong you are, but actually I had something a little different in mind for our rehearsal today,” he said, selecting the sugar and UHT pots from Crowley’s pocket supply once offered. He’d begrudgingly started taking his tea like this in the mornings— it was the only thing to disguise the taste. 

“Oh? Finally saw sense and realised you shouldn’t make _Mary Poppins_ into _The Rite of Spring,_ have you?” 

Aziraphale stared at him, agog.

“My dear boy, was that a _Bausch_ reference?”

If he didn’t know better, he would almost swear Crowley _flushed_.

“I do actually research for roles, it may shock you to hear. Felt a great kinship with the poor sods dancing that thing, I’ll tell you that much, flinging themselves about like that. It’s even worse when someone else is doing the flinging.”

Aziraphale felt a stab of irritation that Crowley had taken it upon himself to watch Pina Bausch. Surely it was _his_ job to be in charge of such matters. He should have been there, talking Crowley through it, explaining it to him. This was swiftly followed by a touch of guilt. Shouldn’t he have been happy Crowley was expanding his education, even without him? Distracted by this train of thought, he took a gulp of tea much larger than his usual which instantly hit his windpipe. He spluttered, tea going everywhere. He grasped blindly for the handy napkin that had also come out of Crowley’s pocket.

“NO!” Crowley snatched it back, and at least had the decency to look contrite about leaving Aziraphale clutching his hand to his face to stem the tide of Twinings that threatened to ruin his outfit entirely. He fished about in his own pockets and found a handkerchief, mopping himself up hastily.

“What on earth was _that_ about?” He asked, peevishly. Crowley had started to laugh at him the moment the handkerchief was revealed.

“Nothing personal. I’m just not letting you destroy our contract,” he answered, holding the napkin aloft. Aziraphale could see now that it was the very same one Crowley had scribbled on in Dishoom. A momentary wave of affection washed over him. _Ridiculous_ , he thought, _absolutely ridiculous_. 

“Ah yes, a most important document, kept safely scrunched in the depths of your pocket.” Aziraphale kept his tone deadpan and Crowley actually stuck his _tongue_ out, like a child. “Well, I was going to ease you into this session but if you’re going to be like that I shall just get right to it. Today, Crowley, instead of me showing you _the moves_ , as it were, I want you to show me how _you_ dance. Perhaps if you were at home, or entertaining company.”

“ _Entertaining company?!_ ”

“Oh, you know what I mean. A date. A beau. Dancing with someone for fun, not profit.”

“Trust me, Aziraphale, if I happen to dance in the company of a _beau_ , nobody is getting any fun _or_ profit out of that evening.”

Aziraphale fixed him with a beseeching look. 

“I had hoped you might indulge me, just this once?”

Crowley’s entire body took up the debate on this matter. His neck wriggled back and forth, his chin jutted, and Aziraphale could see him working up to a good bout of pacing which they simply did not have time for. He reached out and gave Crowley’s arm a reassuring squeeze. It was a gamble, to ask this of Crowley, but one Aziraphale hoped would pay off. His partner stilled, looked down at their point of contact. He prepared himself for a round of verbal protests but what came out instead was:

“Fine, okay. Yep. Why not.”

Aziraphale beamed in order to hide what he was certain would be a very sly smile. This wasn’t the first time Crowley had acquiesced to something framed as a _favour_ rather than an order. Food for thought indeed.

“Thank you,” he took the coffee from Crowley’s hand and placed it and his tea besides the wall. Hopefully Crowley wouldn’t notice if he didn’t return to it. “Now, why don’t you ask our dear girl to play something for you? From your catalogue rather than mine, I think.”

“You wouldn’t like it,” Crowley said, handing over his sunglasses and shaking his hair out of the tight bun he wore for all their rehearsals.

“I’m sure it won’t be as bad as all that,” Aziraphale replied, moving towards the barre on the far side of the room so that he might observe properly. “A person who watches Pina Bausch in their spare time must be somewhat cultured, surely.” 

“Oh, _somewhat_ , sure. You’d be alright with me playing some ska then, would you?” 

From the tone in Crowley’s voice Aziraphale was being ribbed, but he couldn’t quite ascertain how.

“Scar? That sounds a little graphic. Is that some sort of, those, oh— what are they called? The _emotional_ movement?”

“Wh— no, Aziraphale, ska is not— Ess _kay_ ay. Ska. Okay, so remember that time in the nineties when trumpets were in everything?”

“... no.”

“Do you, or do you not, know what a trumpet is.”

“I know what a bloody trumpet is, Crowley, as well you know!”

“Alright, I’m just checking, because the last time we argued about music and I tried to explain what a synth was to you, you said you thought _The Human League_ was a civil rights organisation. Right, okay. A song. I’m not actually going to subject you to ska, but what about... ah, yep, got it. Show you the music video later, you’ll love the suit on this guy. Even wears a little bow tie, does a whole dance routine too. Very _modern_ , probably give you a heart attack.”

He stayed quiet as Crowley asked Alexa to play something he didn’t recognise at all. The name of the artist had not been _The Human League—_ which Aziraphale _did_ know was a pop group now, thank you very much—but he suspected that those twinkly sounds over the top of the rhythmic bassline might have been a _synth_.

Crowley did a little spin in place, and then started to bop from side to side in movements that _approached_ being on beat, but never quite worked up the courage to get there entirely. The singer was no crooner— loud staccato phrases burst forth from the speaker, almost frantic in tone, but Aziraphale couldn’t deny it was _catchy_ somehow. And Crowley was clearly having fun with it, his whole body enthralled to movement. None of this magically made him an incredible dancer; this wasn’t a film where the teacher suggests one tiny change and the whole thing unravels with a tedious inevitability. His partner was still terrible, but he was terrible in that very un-self-conscious, freeing way that comes only from throwing yourself wholeheartedly into something with reckless abandon.

Crowley, Aziraphale realised, _enjoyed_ dancing. Even though he was bad at it. Even though he didn’t know the terminology, the correct posture, the vast history behind each pointed toe and straightened arm. He didn’t have the structured safety of Aziraphale’s know-how to hide behind and yet still he enjoyed it with a sort of freedom that Aziraphale wasn’t sure he could ever have the confidence to experience. 

“You know, for someone who emphasises the importance of paying attention to your partner, you’re absolutely shit at it.”

Aziraphale roused himself from his thoughts to see that Crowley was repeatedly swinging his arm in a large circle over his head and then looping it down in Aziraphale’s direction. He was— _oh, lord_.

“Are you attempting to _lasso_ me onto the dancefloor?”

“Where did you get that ridiculous idea from?” Crowley said, throwing the invisible lasso his way once more. Aziraphale thought about refusing him, but he saw the nervous twitch of Crowley’s fingers as he held the rope tight at waist height.

 _Well_ , Aziraphale thought, _I suppose I only have myself to blame._

Crowley gave an experimental pull of the rope towards him, and Aziraphale jumped forward in time to the beat. Crowley let out a whoop of laughter, and pulled a second time, fingers steady now. This was entirely ridiculous but—always one to skip the penny and go straight for the pound—Aziraphale repeated his jump, and put a little shimmy on it because he hoped it might result in Crowley laughing again. It was a roaring success. 

“How long has it been since you just danced for the hell of it?” Crowley asked, the length of rope between them growing ever shorter. “Not following some rules of movement, not _thinking_ about it all the time? Forget about the structure, the proper form, forget about all that. Just let yourself go, and I mean _really_ let yourself go?”

It was incredible, Aziraphale mused, how often in their short space of time together Crowley would bring up a thought, an idea, a _question_ that Aziraphale had been considering in only the most private parts of himself. How easily Crowley could shine a light on it for him when the thought of doing so of his own accord left Aziraphale with a nervous worry eating away at him.

“Some of us actually like following rules, you know.”

“Pfff, no you don’t. I’ve thought about it a lot since our little get-together yesterday morning, and you know what I think?”

Another pull of the rope, another jump closer.

“I’m certain you’re about to tell me.”

“I think you like knowing what the rules are so you can daintily step around them and do whatever it is that you wanted to do in the first place. Can only _imagine_ the emails good old Gabriel’s received from you over the years. Proper caution, you are.”

“I love dancing, therefore I love following the rules of dancing.” Jump. “I _respect_ those rules. As for _Gabriel_ , however, I— ah, I see how it is. Trying to get me to say something incriminating so you can hold it against me?” Jump, shimmy. “Well, I regret to inform you that it won’t work. I shan’t be caught out on the job.”

Crowley’s hands were suddenly on his waist, tugging him in. The rope had run out, and the only thing between them now was Aziraphale’s quiet laugh of surprise as Crowley grinned at him.

“I’d say you’ve already been caught, wouldn’t you?”

“ _I’d_ say he has, yes.”

Both their heads whipped round at once. There in the doorway was Michael, giving them a clipped smile and a little wave, and the roving camera crew whose lens was pointed directly at the two of them. Michael wielded as much power as Gabriel in the studio—possibly _more_ , nobody seemed quite certain on the hierarchy and it felt gauche to finally ask all these years down the line—but unlike her American counterpart she had the distinctly British advantage of a soft, measured tone that seemed innocuous but nevertheless put the fear of God in you.

“Michael!” He stepped away from Crowley entirely, who had taken advantage of their last moments of closeness to retrieve his sunglasses from Aziraphale’s pocket and shove them back onto his face. Aziraphale couldn’t blame him in the slightest. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough,” she said, giving him a very knowing look. “We didn’t mean to interrupt, and we certainly didn’t mean to panic you, Aziraphale. I’m sure you hadn’t forgotten you’d said we could come film your rehearsal slot today. You sent several quite insistent emails on the matter, seemed rather urgent.”

He had both sent the emails and entirely forgotten he’d done so. It was part of their new strategy— Step Two in action. This wasn’t _quite_ the work he’d wanted to showcase, but he was sure there was no need for him to be so mortified about it. They had only been _dancing_ , for heaven’s sake. That’s what they were here to do. It was, quite literally, his job. Why on earth the thought of explaining any of that to her left Aziraphale’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, he couldn’t say. 

“We were only taking a break.”

Crowley’s tone was flat, expressionless. He’d drawn himself up to his full height, looking for all the world like a cornered animal, ready to lash out. Aziraphale couldn’t have that. There was possibly still something salvageable from this little setback, but not if Crowley got on the wrong side of Michael. Before working on _Strictly_ she’d been a producer in the United States on some tawdry little reality dating show and was, according to Tracy, the undisputed champion at concocting something called a _villain edit_. Aziraphale wasn’t certain anyone on _Strictly_ had ever received a villain edit, but the way Michael was sizing Crowley up made him worried she was considering it.

“A break. At the very start of your morning rehearsal, with less than a week to go until your next live show? You must be terribly confident! Considering all that chat about company emails and naming members of the production team, we probably can’t use this footage anyway so, don’t worry about that being shown around outside of the office,” she gave them both another stiff little smile. Crowley’s entire body tensed, and Aziraphale just knew he was about to unleash that coiled up energy in what would be a very unwise manner. He was close enough to reach over and touch two fingers to the back of Crowley’s wrist, the way he had done at brunch, unseen to the others in the room. He hoped it conveyed the same feeling as before. _I am here with you_ ; _we are in this together; focus on me._

Crowley’s throat worked, but he settled back a touch. It would do.

“Well!” Michael clapped her hands together, and began directing the camera crew around the room. “Let’s get some footage of a proper rehearsal, shall we? We are trying to make a television show, after all. Whenever you’re ready, gentlemen— just pretend like we’re not even here.” 

The cameras began to roll. Crowley left his glasses on as they were filmed. Aziraphale did not ask him to remove them. 

* * *

####  **_STEP 3 : CHARM AND BEGUILE OUR INTERVIEWER_ **

* * *

The rehearsal building had a cafeteria space so grim and so rarely used that it pretty much guaranteed privacy, and so Crowley and Aziraphale arranged to meet their interviewer there at eleven o’clock on Wednesday. To be honest, they could have chosen a better venue. It had a sort of _abandoned secondary school_ chic, with cheap plastic tables and a floor that was always slightly sticky. The lights needed a keycard to be turned on, and since their building was mysteriously empty of staff on any given day, they were forced to do without. They had also neglected to think about refreshments, which are a little-discussed but much-appreciated aspect of interview etiquette, in their experience. They’d wanted to make a good impression; instead they were going to be sat answering questions in a large, dark, deserted room, with a kitchen that had had its shutters down since _Ready Steady Cook_ was taken off the air, on chairs designed by the same people who made bus-stop benches, and drinking tea and coffee from a machine down the hall that lived off fifty-pence pieces. 

By half past, the interviewer still hadn’t turned up. This was probably because it was pissing down outside, and Transport For London went to pieces at the first sign of trouble. Unfortunately, Crowley and TFL had that in common.

“We’ve been stood up,” he said to Aziraphale, pacing back and forth in the narrow gap between plastic tables. 

“Oh dear. And after I got all tarted up, too,” said Aziraphale archly. 

“That’s funny. That’s very funny. That kind of wit that would have been a real asset, if our bloody interviewer had bothered to come and do our _bloody_ interview.” 

Rain drummed on the glass roof, slightly too loud to be relaxing. That was a design flaw, Crowley felt. Putting a great big pane of glass in without checking the acoustics first. Now here he was, trapped by irresponsible architecture. He felt like he was in one of the meditation podcasts Anathema had tried to get him to listen to, the ones with white noise and whale song and jungle sounds that, as far as he was concerned, were about as relaxing as listening to a clogged hoover. Thinking about Anathema made him check his phone again, but she hadn’t replied to any of his increasingly desperate texts. 

“Anathema said to give them another fifteen minutes,” said Aziraphale gently. Crowley whipped around.

“When did she say that?”

“When I texted her, just now.”

“And why the hell is she replying to you and not me?” 

“I’m not sure. Something about you being hysterical.”

Crowley threw himself into a plastic chair, hissing when the chair tried to throw him back out. How could Aziraphale remain so calm? There he was, the picture of nonchalance, leaning back in his co-operative chair, hands comfortably folded on his middle. He gazed up at the rain where it hammered on the glass roof as if it contained all the secrets of the universe. His eyes were the same colour as the sky, a clouded grey. The bastard.

“Well, if they do show up after this, can we at least agree we’re not putting out?” grumbled Crowley.

“I haven’t a clue what that means,” said Aziraphale. “Must you use so many Americanisms?”

“ _Must you_ use so many long words?”

“There’s no need to be churlish—”

“See, there you go again—”

“Stop, _stop_.” Aziraphale held up his hands in surrender. “This is no good. We can’t _bicker_ like this.”

Crowley took a deep breath. “No, you’re right, you’re right, I know you’re right.” He took a few more breaths, fixing his gaze on the lobe of Aziraphale’s ear. Podcasts. Whale noises. _Concentrate on what is within your control, etc._ “Sorry.”

Aziraphale looked at him sideways, the hint of a smile playing about his lips. “Forgiven,” he said. “Although— why are you staring at my ear?”

Crowley was staring because he’d noticed something very interesting indeed. “D’you know, your ear’s pierced?” he said. 

“... Yes?”

“Hmm.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “I didn’t burst into existence in full tweed, you know. I was very enamoured with George Michael, at one point.” 

Crowley had a sudden flash of Aziraphale in his twenties, double denim and one earring and a boyish grin.

“Weren’t we all,” he said distractedly. He’d have to have a quick google later, find some images of early-career Aziraphale. It was probably a goldmine. The nineties were a bad time for everyone, as his own search results would attest, and it was about time he levelled the playing field. 

“Shouldn’t we be, I don’t know. Rehearsing?”

Crowley looked over. Aziraphale twisted his pinky ring round and round his finger. 

“Love the enthusiasm, but I don’t think we’ve got the space,” Crowley said, twisting around to take in the cafeteria and aggrieving his spine in the process. The chair creaked in distress. They were surrounded on all sides by ugly white plastic tables, cut into blob-like shapes that had been specially made for bumping into. Not the best place for a jig.

“No, not the dance. The interview. Maybe we should, ah. Practise, a bit.” 

Crowley narrowed his eyes, and looked at Aziraphale properly. Perhaps Aziraphale wasn’t as cool as a proverbial cucumber after all. The thinned lips. The tiny crease between his brows. The ring twisting. Crowley liked to think of himself as a student of human behaviour, and this? This was textbook. 

“Not nervous yourself, are you, Fell?” he said, slyly. “Not got the _jitters_?”

“Oh, pish,” said Aziraphale, but his gaze darted to the left in a _very_ rabbity way that made Crowley feel extremely validated.

“Pish _posh_ , yes you are!” said Crowley, triumphantly. Every time Aziraphale demonstrated a flaw he felt like he’d won something. Crowley loved getting a rise out of people in general, but for some reason it was especially satisfying with Aziraphale. It was like there was a little lightbulb in Crowley’s brain that lit up every time he managed to get him flustered, or annoyed, or less than completely in control of himself. The part of Crowley that obsessively googled himself in low moments still saw Aziraphale as above him somehow; comfortable and secure, breathing rarefied air. The urge to drag him down to Crowley’s level had not gone away, and had, in fact, increased over time. He didn’t know where that urge came from, only that it pricked at him every moment he was in the other man’s company. “There you are, calling me hysterical, taking the piss, and the whole time—”

“Well if I _am_ nervous, it’s because you made me nervous! I was fine until you started pacing about like a caged heron—”

“ _Heron?!_ ”

“I don’t know, a leggy thing, it’s _very_ distracting, and look at us! We can’t even hold a conversation without sniping at each other—”

“Oh, this one’s on you, this one, I wasn’t being _churlish_ in the least—”

“Oh for Heaven’s—” Aziraphale flung up his hands and the loosened pinky ring went flying, unnoticed by its owner. Crowley heard a chime of distress as it landed somewhere over his shoulder. “I— I am just saying that given your obvious anxiety, maybe we should be workshopping, or, or _something_ , to make you feel more comfortable!”

That stung. “Do you really think I need an _improv class_ to prepare for a sodding interview?”

“Well, it wouldn’t hurt for you to practise being _nice_!”

Crowley could feel the moment hysteria hoisted him by the collar and flung his soul from his body. “Nice? _Nice?!_ ” he sputtered like an overfilled tea kettle. There was colour in Aziraphale’s cheeks; at some point he had stood, and he had his hands jammed on his hips like a disappointed schoolmarm. Indignant noises continued to issue from Crowley’s mouth. _I’m not nice_ , he wanted to say. _No-one has ever called me nice_ , _I have never_ aspired _to nice, nice is a four-letter word._

Instead, he said, “I can be nice.”

Aziraphale narrowed his eyes, like Crowley had offered him a suspicious packet of chewing gum, or an outstretched hand that may or may not be concealing a joy buzzer. “Really,” he said, flatly.

“Of course, darling,” said Crowley, smiling blandly. “Nice as pie.”

Aziraphale breathed hard through his nose. _There it is_ , thought Crowley, delightedly. That thing inside him that made him want to push and prod and poke at the other man flooded his brain with dopamine as a reward, and he felt giddy. 

“You’re making fun of me,” Aziraphale said.

“No idea what you mean, sweetpea.”

“I can’t with you. I just can’t.”

“Don’t be like that, gumdrop.”

Finally, Aziraphale’s lip twitched. “Gumdrop?” he snorted. 

“I can do other sweets? Sherbert lemon. Liquorice allsort. _Soor ploom_.”

“Alright, that’s enough, dear,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley’s stomach flipped in what was probably a mysterious physiological response to victory. Aziraphale ran a distracted hand through his hair and began to retie his tie, which to Crowley was proof positive that he was bricking it. He felt a twinge of remorse. “Hell’s bells,” Aziraphale said softly. “I don’t think they’re going to show up, you know.”

“Nope.”

“We should get out of this terribly depressing room. One of us should call Anathema, ask her to— what are you doing?”

Crowley had gotten down on his hands and knees, and was crawling under the table. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m looking for your ring, you twa— er, petal.”

Aziraphale patted his breast pocket, then his hips, then his rear. “Oh dear,” he said fretfully. “Did you see where it landed?”

“Kind of,” Crowley lied. He bumped his head on the underside of a table and bit back a curse. He tried not to think about how much fossilised gum his hair was coming into contact with.

“Hold on, I’ll help you.” 

“No need.” Crowley spotted a glint of gold a few feet away, and scuffled along on his hands and knees to grab it. 

“Here.” He got up on one knee, blew his hair out of his eyes, and held the ring out to Aziraphale.

Which of course is when their interviewer, forty minutes late, soaked to the skin, carrying a broken umbrella and looking very embarrassed indeed, cleared her throat. 

“Problems on the Northern Line,” she said, limply. She had hair that was probably blonde when it was dry, but was now the bland no-colour of _wet_. Her glasses were steamed up, and briefly Crowley entertained the hope that she couldn’t see him in full proposal pose, but when she took them off to clean them, her eyes flicked sharply between the two.

“I’m sorry. I hope you weren’t waiting too long?” she said. “I contacted your manager, Mr. Crowley, and she said to take as long as needed.”

 _Did she now_ , thought Crowley, but he fixed a smile on his face. He relaxed his limbs as best he could, trying to make the scene look casual, which of course it was. “It’s fine,” he said. “Northern Line— bad, it’s bad. Could be worse, could be Central. Or Bank, it’s got all the, the bankers. Plus, you’re helping me skive off rehearsals, really.” The woman smiled uneasily, which was sensible of her. Crowley swallowed desperately. “Dee, is it?”

“Yes. If I’m keeping you, honestly, we can reschedule—”

“Oh, no, no, of course not,” broke in Aziraphale, and he began patting himself down again until he located and flourished a blue checkered handkerchief. “For your glasses, my dear.”

“And, er, I’ve got…” Crowley cast around for his gym bag and pulled out his towel. “It’s not sweaty,” he assured her. He felt rather than saw Aziraphale’s eyes roll heavenward.

Dee took it, looking a little overwhelmed, and rubbed ineffectually at her hair. The towel had _BEACH, PLEASE_ on it in very large letters and Crowley fervently hoped she didn’t know how to read, which he admitted was unlikely, for a journalist. The towel had, of course, been a gift from Anathema. 

“Right, well,” she said. “I was hoping for tea, but…” She looked around at the cafeteria, dark and shuttered and empty as it was. Crowley thought he’d seen someone working here once, but it had turned out to be a lost electrician looking for the loo. 

“There’s a machine down the hall,” said Aziraphale helpfully, and Dee dutifully trotted off to get one. As soon as she was gone, Aziraphale turned on him.

“It’s not _sweaty_?” he hissed.

“I panicked, alright? I was trying to be nice.”

“ _Clearly_ it’s unnatural.”

“Shut up, shut up, she’s coming back. _Smile_ , pigeon.”

When Dee returned with a paper cup of weak and bitter tea that had cost her three fifty pence pieces and tasted like the back of a cupboard, it was to two very cheerful interviewees who looked like they’d just got done kicking each other under the table. 

The irony of the situation was, all the tension left Crowley’s body the instant Dee pressed record on her handy wee phone app. It was so stupid, really. Anathema had been right, bike metaphor or no; he remembered how to do this. The Crowley mid-interview would have laughed at the Crowley pre-interview, that jangling bundle of nerves and catastrophes. This wasn’t Parkinson, this wasn’t Paxo. This was a girl from _Put Your Feet Up_ doing a fluff piece that would take up a couple of inches on the far right of the Horoscopes page. When she asked how rehearsals were going, he almost laughed. “Oh, _awful,_ ” he said, grinning, and Aziraphale tensed. “It’s not his fault, though, you’ve seen what he’s got to work with.”

“Oh, he’s putting himself down,” said Aziraphale hurriedly. “He’s made real strides this past week!”

Suddenly Crowley had a revelation of the kind that only comes in the clear and crystal high of a performance, and their entire strategy unrolled before him like a red carpet.

“Hear that?” said Crowley, raising his brows. “Real strides. Did _you_ watch last week, Dee? I’d need a bloody— ah, sorry, strike that, _flipping_ long jump to put me ahead.”

Dee laughed politely. “Is that true, Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale frowned. Crowley understood his urge to be genuine and supportive and _nice_ about his progress but it was the exact opposite of what they needed right now. He stepped gently on Aziraphale’s foot. He knew Aziraphale couldn’t see behind his sunglasses but hoped that surely, _surely_ he could read him fairly accurately by now. All that guff about non-verbal communication with your partner had to come from somewhere, despite all evidence to the contrary. Very deliberately, he winked. 

And Aziraphale, god bless him, understood.

“It’s a commitment problem, if anything,” he said drily, settling back into his seat. He adopted the long-suffering expression of the straight man in a double act. “A deficiency of _élan_. He doesn’t half whinge, you know.”

“I do not whinge!” Crowley put a hand to his chest in mock effrontery.

“You do. You also want to take a break every sixteen minutes, I’ve timed you.”

“Well, all work and no play—”

“Makes Jack a great dancer, yes, I’m aware of the saying.”

Crowley could have— well, he could have done something pretty demonstrative, let’s leave it at that. They were both idiots. All this time they’d been worried about the bickering, but that should have been their tactic all along. Good-natured ribbing, affectionate insults. _Banter._ Audiences ate it up, and besides, journalists were always looking for an angle. If they sat here and pretended to be full of the joys of Spring, it would make for a boring interview and put them squarely in the same camp as every other pair of contestants fawning over each other’s skill and talent. 

“Has it been a different experience, Aziraphale, training a male celebrity?” asked Dee, blinking kindly at them both. 

“Well, at the end of the day, it’s about attitude, really,” said Aziraphale. “Regardless of who you’re working with. It’s about how dedicated you both are to coming in, putting in the time, doing the work.”

This was such a polished non-answer that Crowley could have swooned.

“And Crowley, what’s your experience of _Strictly_ been like so far? Were you a fan of the show before coming on?”

He smiled a sharp smile, one that made Aziraphale wriggle uncomfortably. Maybe, if things went according to plan, there would be a time when he could answer that question honestly. But it wasn’t now, in a drab little dinner hall in Week Three.

“It’s been an eye-opening experience, it truly has,” he said, taking his cue from Aziraphale. “I can honestly say my opinion of the show has changed quite a bit.” There. A candyfloss answer, that. All air and sugar. Let none say he couldn’t deflect with the best of them. 

There were a few more softballs. He and Aziraphale had a great time whacking their responses back and forth over the invisible net between them, to get really liberal with the sports metaphors. The giddy feeling Crowley had didn’t go away. Maybe this was what improv was _supposed_ to feel like, and if so, no wonder so many poor sods got addicted to it. There was a little segment the magazine liked to do, Dee said, where she asked them to make quick-fire choices, help the readers get to know them a bit. In the shallowest sense. 

“Salt or Sweet?” she asked.

“Salt,” said Crowley.

“Sweet,” said Aziraphale.

“Morning person or night person?”

“Oh, night owl, me. Dyed in the wool. Or, feather, I suppose.”

“I’m an early riser.”

“ _Really_ , angel,” said Crowley, because apparently he had skidded on a banana peel and crashed into a _Carry On_ film. Sadly, it took him a second to realise that Dee’s eyebrows were in her hairline not because of the _really_ bit, but because of the _angel_ bit, which had slipped out without his noticing. 

_Well_ , thought Crowley, _there’s no explaining that_. 

“Book or film?”

“Film. I don’t read.”

“Colour me stunned. Book, though I have a healthy appreciation for the cinematographic arts.”

“Don’t mind him, he loves waving his great big vocabulary about.”

“Well, yes, that would be from all the books, you see.”

“Red or white wine?”

“Red,” said Crowley.

“White,” said Aziraphale.

“Oh, let’s call the whole thing off,” said Crowley, and the two of them grinned at each other, because this was fun, and maybe Crowley should get a couple bottles of white wine on his way home, actually, just in case, or better yet see if Aziraphale wanted to go out for—

“Oh, sorry, sorry, one more question— I meant to ask it earlier, sorry for the abrupt switch,” said Dee, fumbling with her notes. “I found out that this isn’t actually the first time you two have worked together?”

It was like the ceiling had caved in and doused Crowley with five hours’ worth of accumulated London rain.

“Beg pardon?” said Aziraphale faintly.

Dee was still smiling. “Yeah, a few years ago, now! You were supposed to be in a play together, right? _The Great Plan_? Only it never made it to opening night. A shame, really. You two were the leads?”

Crowley tried to dredge up a response. Dee’s expression wasn’t malicious; this wasn’t a _gotcha_. She had probably dug up this tidbit in her frantic google search before interview, and thought it might be a good thing to ask about. Which it would have been, if it hadn’t absolutely undone Crowley.

“Oh, yes!” Aziraphale was saying, bravely. “Yes, it would have been a very interesting project to work on, but we never got out of the rehearsal stage due to— well, what I mean to say is, it was so long ago, and we both worked on it for a relatively short time. Hardly enough to get to know one another, really!” 

No, it hadn’t been. Other than the read-throughs they’d only had one, two conversations at most. One that really stuck out, though, and that had been on a dark stage, Crowley half-drunk, Aziraphale’s pale blond head looming out of the wings like a tiny moon.

“Yeah,” said Crowley. His voice sounded flat to his own ears. “Hardly any time at all.”

Dee left soon after that. She didn’t seem to have picked up on the awkwardness at the end; hell, she was positively bouncing as she handed Crowley his towel back (“ _B_ _each Please_ , that’s so funny,” she said) and skittered off to her office or Joe & The Juice or wherever she went to type up her articles. It had stopped raining. Aziraphale and Crowley had had a tentative plan to rehearse post-interview, but clearly that plan had been bollocksed up, so instead they parted ways at the door with a few terse pleasantries. The weak sunlight lit Aziraphale’s retreating back and sifted through his hair as Crowley watched him go. He didn’t want this, he realised; he didn’t want to feel shit about something that had happened ten years ago and that he wasn’t sure he even needed to apologise for. He didn’t want this thing lingering between them, getting in the way of things. In the way of the competition. 

“Oi, angel!” he called.

Aziraphale turned round.

“Yes?” he called back.

“Erm— d’you wanna meet a bit earlier, tomorrow? Make up for lost time?”

A few passers-by shot him pitying looks, but not many, because this was London.

“Of— of course!” Aziraphale shouted. “You don’t get out of rehearsals that easily!” he waved, and maybe it wasn’t quite as jaunty as usual, but his pinky ring flashed in the sun all the same. 

Crowley got out his phone.

> cant believe u still havnt replied [ **11:40** ]  
> got run over by horse & carriage broke both legs dance career ruined [ **12:01** ]  
> tragic loss 4 evry1 az wept [ **12:02** ]  
> im never gonna dance again guilty feet hv got no feet [ **12:02** ]  
> still alive if u care [ **12:43** ]  
> interview went gr8 btw [ **12:43** ]

Anathema still did not reply. 

* * *

Tracy had been delighted to see Aziraphale just after their interview finished. He smoothly brushed off her questions about why they weren’t rehearsing, reassuring her that at this point in time a break was exactly what they both needed and that he was all too happy to sit in on her making the final adjustments to Crowley’s garments for the live show. It would be nice to watch someone work confidently and competently in these moments when he wasn’t sure he could muster up enough bravado to make himself as much as a cup of tea. Luckily, Tracy also did that for him.

“You’re a godsend, my dear.”

“The two of you must stop flattering me like this, go straight to my head it will,” Tracy smiled, settling in next to him after Crowley’s dress was safely tucked away where any busybodies who came nosing around the studio wouldn’t spot it. “So, do you want to talk about the interview? Something’s happened, I can tell— gone all quiet. Doesn’t suit you, love.”

Aziraphale grimaced. It wasn’t as though he and Tracy had never discussed his thoughts and feelings on how he’d been affected when _The Great Plan_ fell through. She usually worked herself up into a good rant and rave about it all, which never failed to make him feel better; to have someone fighting his corner so passionately when he was mostly used to having to do it all by himself. This was different, though. It had been a few years since he’d allowed himself to get maudlin about it all, and neither he nor Tracy had been spared the time to discuss exactly how he felt now that Crowley was back in his life and they were working together. That particular set of emotions was neatly boxed up and stacked away on a very high shelf in Aziraphale’s mind, stamped with a very foreboding red label that read NOT TO BE OPENED UNTIL THE COMPETITION ENDS. The interview had rattled the shelves and the box was now precariously balanced on the edge. He simply couldn’t afford to do anything else that might tip it over.

“Not to worry,” he leant over and patted her hand. “Nothing I can’t handle on my own, anyway.”

“Nice to have a bit of help though, sometimes. Extra pair of hands, for if it gets a bit too hard.”

“I don’t deny that you’re _very_ skilled at this sort of thing, my dear, but perhaps—”

A heavy step and a Scottish brogue came barrelling down the hallway.

“Unhand her you great—”

Shadwell burst into the room, sending sequins flying. He had one hand on his security badge and the other outstretched and pointing. He stopped short when he saw Aziraphale.

“You weren’t about to call me a ‘great southern pansy’, there, were you, Shadwell?” asked Aziraphale, mildly. He left his hand exactly where it was.

Shadwell drew himself up to his full height. “I wasnae,” he said, proudly. “The lady said it was discriminatory, an’ I listened.”

“Good.”

“I was gonna call ye a bastard, though.”

“Ah.”

“Because I still think yer a bastard.”

“Yes, thank you.”

Tracy looked between the two of them, hiding her smile behind the rim of her teacup. “Oh, Mr. Shadwell,” she said softly. “How many times must I tell you that Aziraphale is just my very good friend, and that he’s welcome here whenever he likes?”

“Am just lookin’ out for ye, Madam,” he said, staunchly. “I heard him, clear as day. Talk of bein’ _handled._ He may have designs on yer virtue.”

Tracy sputtered a laugh into her tea. Aziraphale fought to keep a straight face. Whatever virtue Tracy once had was, by her own gleeful admission, _long_ gone, and it was deeply amusing to Aziraphale that Shadwell both acknowledged Aziraphale was gay _and_ thought him hell-bent on Tracy’s seduction.

The Head of Security cleared his throat. “Are ye quite well, Miss?”

Tracy, god love her, fluttered her eyelashes. “Oh, I am,” she breathed. “All the better for your paying me a visit, dear. Would you like some tea?”

Aziraphale had spent a great many years being baffled by Tracy’s taste in men, and so he bore her crush on Shadwell with fond resignation. He comforted himself with the knowledge that at least he wasn’t as bad as the medieval weapons expert, or the crystal therapist, or man who thought extraterrestrials were keying his car. There had been an uncomfortable few months when they both fancied the same amateur stage magician, but he’d turned out to have a wife in Bath and another in Milton Keynes, so their relationship had survived this time of trial. Shadwell was, in many ways, an improvement, but then, after all these years, Aziraphale still wished that she and the Tattooed Lady from the Russian Circus could have made it work.

Shadwell’s intrusion was usually unwelcome, but in this case, it provided Aziraphale with both a distraction from sorting through his feelings just yet and—more importantly—a brilliant idea.

“Mister Shadwell, I’m actually very grateful that you’re here,” he said, interrupting all the mooning that was going on over his head. “I wished to talk to you about— about a security matter.”

Shadwell perked up considerably. His little grey eyes grew steely. “Oh, aye?” he said. “Do ye have intelligence?”

“I have, ah, some intelligence, yes,” said Aziraphale, once he’d worked out that Shadwell wasn’t asking him about his IQ. “I have received word that…” a vision of Anathema popped into his head. “That a _witch_ has been spotted in the building.”

Shadwell’s eyes widened. “A witch, ye say?” He rubbed the scruff on his chin. “Are ye sure, sire? I havnae encountered a witch for many years.”

“I’m not sure at all,” said Aziraphale, seriously. “In fact, I may never be sure. But I _suspect_. And you are always saying, Sergeant, that it is better to be over-prepared than underground.”

“I am always sayin’ that,” said Shadwell, thoughtfully.

“And after everything you’ve said about occult forces attacking the BBC, well, when I saw this young lady charting horoscopes—"

“Horoscopes!” barked Shadwell. “Divination, in this very building! Ye did well bringing this straight to me, yer honour.”

An important thing to know about Shadwell, and a thing that Aziraphale had only learned a year or so after joining _Strictly_ , was that Shadwell was actually one of the last Witchfinders left in Britain. What this entailed, precisely, Aziraphale didn’t know; Shadwell didn’t seem particularly religious, nor was he affiliated to any Church. He wasn’t recognised officially by the Government. The position also clearly didn’t pay well, if anything at all, otherwise he wouldn’t be working as a security guard. But Britain was slow to adapt to modern times, and apparently when Shadwell had been hired in the Seventies, having _Witchfinder Sergeant_ on his CV had still carried enough prestige to net him the job.

“You understand my concern, and why I’d suggest, ah, extra security. She’s often in the company of my dance partner, you see.”

Shadwell nodded. “Aye, the sleekit feller. Skinny Malinky Longlegs,” he said sagely, and Aziraphale made a note to pass that name on to Crowley. 

“It might be best to have someone about. Just in case.”

“Nae fear.” Shadwell pulled a grubby tissue from his pocket, and blew his nose like a foghorn. “We’ve the budget for new blood,” he said. “It’s about time, an all. In these godless years, it doesnae do tae have just one man stand between darkness an’ light.”

Aziraphale smiled. He had solved the problem. Or, rather, he had solved the _easier_ of the problems that needed solving. Shadwell would have his new hire guard the dance studio, and he and Crowley would have some peace while Aziraphale made arrangements for an alternate rehearsal space. He felt a modicum of control returning to him— perhaps he could even brave reaching out to Crowley for a rehearsal later that afternoon. Baby steps, though. Baby steps.

“I’ll take my leave,” Shadwell said, nodding to himself. “Milady,” he said to Tracy, bowing. She giggled. “Sassenach,” he said to Aziraphale, which was about as polite as he had ever been.

“And he was worried you’d take advantage of _me_ ,” tutted Tracy, as he left. He left the door open. “He should have been worried about himself, poor lamb. Shame on you, Aziraphale.”

“Oh, please,” Aziraphale said, watching Shadwell march down the corridor. “Look at him. He hasn’t been this happy in years.”

* * *

####  **_STEP 4 : WIN THE HEARTS OF THE GENERAL PUBLIC_ **

* * *

Crowley had worn a suit for dress rehearsal, for reasons of subterfuge. It had gone… fine. Sort of. Aziraphale hadn’t dropped his hat, Crowley hadn’t forgotten any steps, the band had nailed the arrangement. It was their best run-through so far, _much_ better than the absolute pigs’ ear they’d made of it in front of Michael, but Crowley was still about as flexible as a curtain pole, or bollard, or some other inflexible thing he didn’t have the mental energy to think of right now and nearly went over on his Savoy kick. He could see the other contestants shooting him pitying looks— all except Eve, who, when one of the professionals made a snide comment Crowley couldn’t hear, did a very rude hand gesture and mouthed “wanker” in Crowley’s direction. She and Adam were doing an American Smooth to _Kiss From A Rose_ from Batman Returns, and the lad was having far too much fun with his cape. When Crowley complimented Eve on her Catwoman get-up, she snorted. “What, this old thing? Had it in the back of my wardrobe.” 

She was brilliant, Eve. No idea where they’d got her from.

He’d gone straight from dress rehearsal to Costume, where Tracy had put him in his newly-altered Poppins regalia, pronounced it _fan-dabby-dozy, if she did say so herself_ , and sent a memo down to Makeup so they’d have everything ready for him on Saturday. Makeup had no ruler but Tracy, and accepted their new marching orders without a murmur. They, in turn, told Hair, and Hair told Lighting, and Lighting, who were for some reason the biggest load of gossips on set, told everyone else. By the end of Friday, the Poppins Gambit was common knowledge to everyone but the showrunners. To cover their arses, Aziraphale sent along news of the costume change to Gabriel with the subject line GRAVELY IMPORTANT, so they could be absolutely sure he wouldn’t read it.

On the Night Of, Crowley snuck down to Costume during the ad break, where Tracy was waiting to lace him into his corsets. He unpinned his hair from where it was tucked under his bowler hat, gave his fairy godmother a quick smooch on the cheek (“Oh, _Mister C_!” she giggled) then legged it to Makeup where he had eyeliner, lipstick and rouge applied by a horde of artists quicker than a pit crew. Then it was back up the stairs to the stage, to wait in the wings until Adam and Eve had finished their Seal number. 

While he lurked, someone grabbed his arm.

“Excuse me, erm. You’re not supposed to be back here.”

Crowley whipped around to see a gangly young man with a torch and a uniform that looked two sizes too big.

“You what?” growled Crowley, and the boy took a step back, eyes wide behind his glasses.

“Sorry, I just. I don’t think anyone is supposed to be back here,” he stammered. “Even the contestants, it’s, um—"

Crowley stalked forward. The thing he loved most about heels was how easy it was to create a sense of menace; he clicked with every step. The boy quailed.

“Who says?” asked Crowley.

“S-Sergeant Shadwell said, so, I think, you should probably come with me—”

A hand landed on his shoulder, and the boy squeaked.

“Ah! You must be Shadwell’s new man,” Aziraphale said, kindly. “It’s alright, we’re contestants.”

The kid looked like he was about to pass out. He had a hand-written name tag on his breast pocket that said “DEPEUTY”, so he was definitely Shadwell’s. Crowley couldn’t deny that the grizzled old blighter had a certain knack for intimidation, but his protégé couldn’t scare up a good meal. The Deputy looked between the two of them, dismayed. “But— It’s dangerous back here, there’s wires and, and things…”

Aziraphale smiled. “What’s your name, dear?”

“N-Newt.”

“Newt,” said Aziraphale, as if he’d given a normal name and not an amphibian, “I assure you, my partner and I have permission. If you’re worried about getting in trouble, tell him Tracy’s _very_ good friend said it was fine.”

Newt looked at Crowley, who gave him his nastiest smile. He gulped.

“Off you pop,” said Aziraphale, firmly.

Newt left, but not before dropping his torch and having to scuffle about for it. 

Crowley realised this was the first time Aziraphale had seen him in costume; he felt the absurd urge to fix his hair, even though he knew it was perfect.

“How are you feeling?” murmured Aziraphale.

“Oh, brilliant. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.” Aziraphale tutted at the lazy joke. “To be fair, you walked into that one.”

“I suppose I did.” From their vantage point in the wings, they could see Adam and Eve begin their routine. They were, Crowley had to admit, magnificent. They watched them together, in silence, the way they moved together like they had been doing it for years. Crowley felt Aziraphale’s attention shift to him; he kept his eyes on the stage.

“You look wonderful, my dear,” murmured Aziraphale. Then he grinned, and Crowley saw his teeth flash a little in the dark, just out of the corner of his eye. “Practically perfect in every way.”

“Oh, _terrible_ ,” groaned Crowley, but he could feel that warmth spread through him again, complicating all his internal organs. “You could have at least saved that one for the cameras.”

“Well, I wanted to be the first. There are going to be more than a few terrible jokes before this night is over, I can tell you.”

Crowley winced. “I’m not worried about jokes. People are going to tell me I’m _brave_ ,” he said, disgustedly.

“They are,” said Aziraphale. “Some of them might even mean it. Myself among them.”

Crowley, who believed emotions didn’t happen to you if you didn’t pay attention to them, shook that off. “No, brave would be if my heels were higher than two inches. What was that Ginger Rogers quote, again?”

“No time,” said Aziraphale, as the lights changed, and Adam and Eve made their way to the judges’ table. “I’ve got to go shimmy up a lamppost.”

Live television, like live theatre, is magic. Everything has to be worked out to within the last second. Aziraphale slipped away, to be clipped into a harness. Their set, such as it was, was readied in the wings. Adam and Eve received their comments, and skipped back up the curving stairs to the contestants’ balcony to talk shop with Claudine and Jess. Whilst the camera crew switched feeds to follow them, the stage went dark, the stagehands crept out, and the set was wheeled on. Silently, Aziraphale was hoisted to the top of the lamppost, and they waited.

When the cameras turned back to the stage, it was still mostly dark. A pale blue light, like moonlight, lit Aziraphale’s hair, the outline of his features, and the glass case at the top of the lamppost. The opening strains of _A_ _Cover Is Not the Book_ began, and Aziraphale, the theatrical bastard, pretended to breathe on the glass and give it a good polish with his sleeve. Then he lit the lamp, and the lights went up, and the audience saw Crowley, leaning at the bottom of the lamppost in full Poppins regalia with his most devil-may-care grin on his face.

In the midst of the noise that followed—and they were cheers, Crowley had known they would be, but by god it was a relief all the same—the band kicked up into the new arrangement. Aziraphale slid down the lamppost like a fireman’s pole. He took Crowley’s hand, pulled him into jockey position, and off they bloody _went_.

Later, Crowley would say that the spirit of Poppins moved in him, and maybe that was true. Maybe it was the dress, maybe it was being in character, maybe it was the high of knowing what he was doing was a massive _fuck you_ to the Powers that Be, but Crowley danced better that night than he thought he was capable of.

It would all have been perfect, but for one thing.

Crowley had spent some time on the rom-com circuit in the early 2000s, around the time he had done _Saunter Down The Aisle_. There was always a moment in them that he had to be aware of, a small but crucial lynchpin of the plot. It was the moment when Character A realised their inconvenient attraction to Character B. Anathema, when they watched terrible rom-coms together, liked to call them the “ _oh-no-they’re-hot_ ”—all one word—after the expression on the protagonists’ faces. A look past the camera. A fairly tight close-up. An expression of stunned incredulity, maybe a tentative smile, like they’ve been kicked in the face by a horse but are weirdly pretty chuffed about it. Because he and Anathema were usually drinking steadily through any rom-coms they watched, they would always cheer and take a drink when they spotted them; afterwards Anathema would inevitably fire up YouTube and put on the scene in _Saunter_ where a young Anthony J Crowley realised he was into a young Sophie Okonedo, so she could make cooing sounds at what a baby he was. Crowley had been good at those scenes, even though he’d never had such a clear moment of revelation in his own life. His history was full of desperate fumbles, one-night stands, ill-advised affairs with friends and co-workers. It took him a while to _really_ fancy people, and he usually saw it coming from a mile off— the rumble of the horse’s hooves before the actual horse, as it were.

In the middle of their routine, Aziraphale rolled his bowler down his arm and flicked it deftly onto his head in one smooth, fluid movement. Pleased with himself, he ad-libbed, or whatever the equivalent was in dance; he tipped the brim at a rakish angle and threw a wink at the camera just over Crowley’s shoulder, in a move that was unexpectedly, undeniably, _sexy_.

And Crowley thought, _Oh no, he’s hot_.

He missed one step, just one, and although he recovered the routine it was like he’d missed a step _inside_ , on the grand sweeping staircase of his life, and was struggling to right himself before he fell head over heels. Aziraphale’s hands slipped back around his waist for the final lift, but felt different, now, and dismay flooded Crowley even as heat crawled up his spine. All the frantic messages his body had been sending him over the past few weeks suddenly made sense.

 _Wham_. Hoofprint, right in the middle of his forehead.

Everybody take a drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello once more from your showrunners, [mort](https://mortifyingideal.tumblr.com/) & marginalia! a quick note, if you’ve got a sec.
> 
> when we started writing this fic, we had a vague structure for what the story was going to be and what it was going to look like. that’s not changed, not really, but one thing we’ve collectively decided on which we hadn’t at the start is that we are Schitt’s Creek rules-ing this thing. for those of you who don’t know what that means (please go watch Schitt’s Creek) it is essentially a promise that this is a story about Queer Joy. 
> 
> that’s not to say that all the shite that comes with being queer and visible and on telly isn’t going on, somewhere, in the background of this universe. but we don’t see why our lads should have to deal with it, not when we’re in control. picture us as Crowley and Aziraphale’s social media managers, going through their replies and clicking BLOCK, REPORT so they don’t have to. these characters are going to get to live their authentic lives and they won’t be punished for it, or live in fear of that punishment. nobody is getting removed from the floor for any reason other than they danced a bit shit that week. 
> 
> there are many, many other brilliant authors out there who have written fics in this fandom that directly engage with what it’s like living alongside bigotry, and written them in beautiful and interesting and heartfelt ways. we don’t want to tell that story. we want to tell this one, and we hope you’ll want to stick around and read it.
> 
> Queer Joy, baby, all the way down.


	5. Week Four — The Foxtrot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **7.00pm** — Crowley and Aziraphale have pulled off The Poppins Gambit and made it through to dance another day— but at what cost? An out-of-work actor monologues, a social media movement is born, and a professional reveals hidden depths. Time to chassé our way into Week Four!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi friends just a heads up— know we've mentioned it a little in passing before, but there is some explicit smoking in this one. it'll probably be the only chapter where it happens, but if not we'll give another shout as and when.   
> 

* * *

“Look, we haven’t got much time, but I have to talk to you about something, because I have to talk to _someone_ about it, and for reasons that will soon become very obvious it can only be you. So what I need from you is just to sit there and listen until I’m done talking. I even brought you some fancy food from that place you like—a complete rip-off, by the way, do _not_ get used to it—in exchange for your silence on this matter. I think I do enough for you that you can handle that, right? I am literally putting food on the table for you here, I take care of you, I’ve _always_ taken care of you, and now I am asking you as a professional courtesy to return the favour. Considering some of the things you put me through I think I’ve earned it. _Capisce?”_

Blessed silence met Crowley’s ears. He’d been expecting a bit of a fight, but maybe his tone was serious enough to warrant easy cooperation for once.

“T’riffic. Right. So, the thing is, maybe he did look a _little_ good out there. Aziraphale, I mean. I know you know I meant him, but just. For clarity’s sake. Admitting it out loud is the first step towards healing and all that rubbish. Course, I don’t actually _have_ anything to admit to. Oh, what, it’s crime now, is it? To notice, to—to think someone, someone who’s regularly on the telly, with a bunch of makeup and a well-tailored costume and studio lights literally _designed_ to cast someone in the best light, it’s a crime to think they look good?”

He paused. Still no response.

“No, course not! Course it isn’t. It was just the—“ he waved his hands about “—the _ambience_ , innit? Watching someone be very, very good at their job, even if their job involves rolling their hips and waving a bowler hat around like a vaudeville lap dancer, you just start to feel things, don’t you? Can’t help it. Instincts. Happens all the time in the industry. Work closely with someone for long enough, especially when you’re manhandling each other—for work, manhandling each other _for work_ —and you start to think, oh well, he’s a bit of alright isn’t he? He’s got that, that mouth and he does that thing with the tip of his tongue when he’s smiling sometimes which, between you and me, I think he does on purpose because he has to _know_ how that looks. Body’s good, body’s good, knew that when I first saw him again though, didn’t I? He’s a dancer, course his body’s good. Different, though, to the others. Most dancers look like, like, well you know, like _dancers_ typically do. Like someone painted on their muscles because their bodies are all so, and then all the spray tan and the, the wiry bits, but he’s more like. He’s sturdy. You wouldn’t guess just from looking at him but, tell you what, you can’t half feel how strong he is, how much power’s underneath all those simply _nifty_ sweater vests he insists on wearing, when he holds— when he’s dancing with you.”

Crowley could feel himself getting off track and that wouldn’t do. He knew his audience and he knew that if he gave an inch an unquantifiable number of miles would be taken. He cleared his throat, searching for some way to stay in control of this situation. There had to be _something_ negative to focus on.

“The clothes, that’s it! The clothes, of course, leave a lot to be desired, be more than happy to take those out of the picture.”

 _Excellent, truly excellent work_.

“No, hold on. That came out all wrong, you know I didn’t mean— this is all purely objectifying. Objective! I’m just stating facts here. Don’t give me that look. What was I saying? Right! The ambience, the showbiz thing. Close-quarters, working together, very susceptible to heightened emotions. Grown accustomed to his face and all that.”

Crowley had started to pace now, warming to his train of thought.

“That’s all it is, isn’t it? I’ve just been out of the game too long. Personal and professional. I mean, when was the last time I had someone back here for a mind-blowing shag? Or even just a boring, run-of-the-mill shag? _Don’t_ answer that, s’creepy thinking you know about that sort of stuff. My point is, I haven’t had a lot of contact with another living being in the past few years, present company excluded, and so after a bit of casual flirting, which I freely admit to— ‘course I’ve flirted with him, it’s called _working an angle_. An angle, by the way, that got us through the public vote this week. It doesn’t have to mean anything! I flirt with everyone! Not you, obviously, but. The judges, Madame Tracy, that bloke Geoff from security and yes, alright, Aziraphale too. Equal opportunity flirtist, that’s me. So not much of a stretch is it, after all that, for my brain to go _well, Crowley, he’s already had his admittedly very nice looking hands all over you, so you should… should…_ ”

His pacing slowed to a complete halt. A few silent seconds were dedicated exclusively to the imagining of what precisely Crowley _should_ with Aziraphale.

“Ah-ah-ah, no, stop it! See, this is _exactly_ what I’m talking about! It’s dangerous, is what it is! I can’t be thinking about this when I have to go and be, be, professional with him for hours on end, watching him—and his forearms and his thighs and that _pierced bloody ear_ and all the sodding rest of it—be competent at dancing and winking like a complete tart and then _bantering_ with me. And that’s another blasted thing! When the hell did Aziraphale learn to banter?! I swear, he was never like that back in the old days. Just fuss fuss fuss twenty-four-seven. Yeah, okay, maybe we had a bit of a _professional rapport_ but that was just work, wasn’t it? Now it’s just— just easy. Like talking to a mate. _Fun_.” He pronounced the word as though it had personally offended him. “Aziraphale Fell is _fun_. And smart, and quick. And kind of a bastard but, let’s face it, that’s never really been a problem for me. The opposite of a problem, actually. Which is the problem in itself. It’s all very problem-y. Problemesque? I know there’s a word I’m looking for here—”

“Problematic.”

 _“JESUS_ _FUCK!”_

Crowley jumped up, almost knocking over the sabre fig he’d been hissing into the leaves of in the process. He threw out a hand to steady it, and gave it a look that the plant roughly translated to _I could have let you fall just then, but I didn’t, so remember my mercy and keep schtum._

“Anathema!” He went for the best casual tone he could manage while he was still willing his heartbeat back into a regular rhythm. “Forgotten how to knock, have we? When on earth did you get back?”

 _How much did you hear,_ he internally added to the list of questions, _and if the answer is ‘all of it’ how soon can you arrange for me to hurl myself into the Thames._

“Why would I need to knock? You’re so _jumpy_ , it’s not like this is the first time I’ve walked in on you ranting to the houseplants.”

“ _Jumpy?_ Nah, I’m not jumpy. I’m cool. I’m very cool, very relaxed. I’m Frankie Goes To Hollywood, that’s how relaxed I am.”

“Uh- _huh_.” She eyed the packet in his hand. “Hey, Frankie? Isn’t that the really expensive plant food you told me under pain of death to never buy again?”

“Nope.” He tossed the half-full packet into the bin. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

She narrowed her eyes and looked from him to the cowering plants who better _keep their mouths shut,_ and back to him again with a terrifying, laser-like focus that made him worried _he_ wouldn't be able to keep his mouth shut. She’d wrangle a confession out of him and jump to entirely the wrong conclusion. She’d be all disapproving and want to talk about _professional boundaries_ —which would give him the opportunity to bring up some points regarding pots and kettles—or alternatively she’d get all supportive and want to talk about his _feelings for Aziraphale—_ which he _didn’t have!_ —and Crowley had to take action here or things were going to get out of hand very quickly.

“Did you get eggs? Remembered I’m out after you’d already left, texted you. Eggs, I said. Even added an emoji of an egg, which is all your fault, by the way, you and Aziraphale. Not that I’m texting Aziraphale a lot, I just know he’s picked it up from you, and now I’m doing it. Emojis, not. Not texting Aziraphale. Haven’t got any reason to text him. Just you. About eggs. You can’t make huevos rancheros without the huevos, then it’d just be rancheros I s’pose. Can it just be one without the other? What’s in a vegan rancheros?”

“Crowley, you can’t honestly expect me to walk in and find you railing at the plants like this, acting all suspicious and voluntarily bringing up veganism, and _not ask_ —"

“Look, just leave it for once, would you!” He tried to imbue this order with a firm air of seniority, but he had a suspicion it came out more like a panicked plea. Anathema held her hands up in surrender, bringing up the eco-friendly tote bag full of the makings of their breakfast. There were, very clearly, eggs.

“Consider it left,” she said. Crowley was aware there was an unspoken _for now_ in there somewhere. “But just for taking that tone with me, _you_ get to make breakfast today. Besides, I’m sure the greenery will tell me all about it once we get a moment alone.”

“Not if they know what’s good for them they won’t,” Crowley grumbled under his breath. He followed her out of the plant room with a last threatening look over his shoulder at the most verdant, beautiful, and exasperated plants in all of London. 

* * *

Crowley had to drag himself to rehearsal on Monday. Having Sundays off had felt luxurious at first, but it had given his Charleston-ravaged body time to take stock of the situation and realise that, actually, the last few weeks had involved a lot more physical exertion than it had signed up for and maybe it was time for a regime change. In retrospect, he should probably have done more than one rehearsal in the heels. Two inches didn’t feel like much when you were walking about, but after a leap or two, by _god_ they made themselves felt. Added to the physical discomfort was the exhaustion of spending half his weekend stewing over an inconvenient crush that may or may not be completely fabricated, so all in all, he was hobbling into rehearsal with the emotional equivalent of a slipped disc _and_ , he felt, deserved lashings of praise for bothering to show his face at all.

When he turned up, Shadwell’s Deputy was outside the studio. He seemed to have taken apart his walkie-talkie and was struggling to put it back together, if the tangle of wires was any indication. He shoved it in his pocket when he saw Crowley approach.

“Morning, Mr. Crowley,” he said nervously. “H-how are you?

Newt wasn’t the _last_ person Crowley wanted to see, but he certainly wasn’t the first either. “Morning,” Crowley grunted. He made for the door, but the lad didn’t shift out of the way. “ _Excuse_ me.”

Newt rocked from one leg to the other. “I—I’m not sure if I should let you in, sir. Mr. Crowley.” He winced apologetically, probably aware that he was making an enemy but absolutely helpless to stop it. “Sergeant Shadwell said I was to keep a perimeter.”

“A perimeter.” Crowley’s not infinite reserves of patience were already running low today. Something about the lack of sleep, and the freezing shower. “Is Aziraphale in there?” Newt nodded. “And he’s allowed past the… perimeter?” Another nod. “Well, he’s not going to get very far dancing on his tod, is he? _’Scuse_.” He tried to edge past, but Newt’s bad posture and baggy uniform blocked the way. Crowley could feel a growl of frustration in the back of his throat. To his credit, Newt looked scared shitless.

“Sergeant Shadwell was very clear—”

“Oh, I doubt that.”

“Well, actually, he said to only let ‘the redhead’ in,” Newt babbled, “and I already let Madame Tracy in there earlier with a cup of tea for Mr. Fell, and she’s got red hair, so—so now I don’t know if he meant you or her.”

“So call and check,” said Crowley, through gritted teeth.

“Well I would, but, I can’t.” His hand twitched towards his pocket, where the remains of the walkie talkie bulged. “Technical difficulties.”

Crowley rubbed at his eyes. “Newt, was it?”

“Yes si—yes.”

“Newt, are you under orders to obstruct me, specifically?”

“N-no—”

“So then what _is_ your job. Specifically.”

“I’m…” Newt cleared his throat. “I’m supposed to look out for witches.”

They stared at each other. Newt pushed the door open for Crowley, face burning.

While it was good to know that he still had the ability to intimidate people, the boost to Crowley’s ego was incredibly short-lived. He walked in, saw Aziraphale, and spun on his heel back the way he came. _Nope_ , he thought. _Absolutely not_. Another ten minutes, that’s all he needed. Time to finish his coffee, stretch his legs, walk it off, screw his courage to the sticky place. 

On his way out, he walked into Newt a second time.

“Oh.” The boy’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Not going in, then?”

Crowley held up one finger in warning. He did two laps of the security building and came back. This time, Newt let him in without comment.

Aziraphale was still warming up, and the reason Crowley had spun straight back around was that he had one leg up on the barre as he stretched. His trousers, which were some standard-issue tan slacks that were definitely _not_ designed for the sort of stress he was putting them under, were pulled taut. The two frayed wires in the back of Crowley’s brain that had shaken loose over the weekend touched, and sparked. _Thighs_ , he thought, incoherently.

“Thighs,” he said, perfectly coherently, and then, “I mean, hi.”

“Ah!” Aziraphale bent to touch his toes. “Thought I heard you come in. Have you done your warmups yet? I ran a little late.”

“Er, no,” said Crowley.

“Pull up a leg, then,” Aziraphale said, then tittered at his own joke. Crowley instantly felt much better. What had happened, he reasoned, was that he had seen Aziraphale do something objectively quite alluring on the dancefloor and then gotten into his own head about it, constructing a seductive fantasy version of Aziraphale that was _nothing like_ the actual man. Crowley could not possibly be attracted to the person before him. He had standards, cool standards. Standards of cool. He had dated the kind of people other people had posters of. Actors, and models, and people who could play guitar. He did his stretches, studiously not looking at Aziraphale. He concentrated instead on the burn in his legs and arms, on his breathing, and on congratulating himself for heading his own misplaced attraction off at the pass.

When he looked up again, he saw that Aziraphale’s trousers had ridden up slightly at the ankle. He was wearing sock garters. Crowley wanted to pull them down with his teeth.

This was the most mortifying thing that had ever happened to him.

“…but we should ride this as long and as hard as we possibly can.”

“Sorry?” Aziraphale had apparently been speaking for the last few minutes. Crowley tried desperately to catch up.

“I said our Charleston has generated a wave of positive public opinion, and we should ride this as long and as hard as we possibly can.”

“Oh,” said Crowley. “Yeah. Yep.” He was very distracted, both by the sock thing and the fact that if Aziraphale leant over much further his shirt might come a _little_ untucked at the back.

“And,” Aziraphale beamed, “we weren’t bottoms this week! Hurrah!”

Crowley choked. _“What?”_

“Bottoms! We weren’t in the bottom two!”

“Yay,” Crowley cheered weakly, waving a fist in the air. It was at this point that his poor, overtired brain, exhausted from justification and argument and counter argument and counter-counter argument, simply gave up.

“So,” said Aziraphale, dropping down and shaking his limbs out like a pleased retriever, “this week… is the foxtrot.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Not to toot my own horn, but traditional ballroom is where I _really_ shine.”

“Yeah, I was gonna say, you’ve been shit so far.” That had been a joke, because Aziraphale was objectively an _excellent_ dancer, but it suddenly sounded spiteful to Crowley’s ears. Was he being mean? Was he— oh, god, this whole time, had he been pulling Aziraphale’s metaphorical _pigtails?_ He had, hadn’t he. Only now he was aware of it, and he had no idea what level of insult was normal anymore and what was outright cruel. What if he overshot it? What if he was trying to do _irreverent scoundrel_ and ended up doing _sour bitch_ instead? “That’s not—I wasn’t serious. I’m sure you’re brilliant at the foxtrot. Best in the game.”

Aziraphale brushed that off. “Well, I’m no Richard Gleave!” he joked, and Crowley laughed along with him even though he had no bloody clue who that was. Pathetic, this. If he didn’t knock it on the head soon he’d end up googling all sorts of shite at three in the morning just to seem less thick.

“I shan’t lie to you, it’s a little stiff as a dance, but it’s also very _elegant_. Good posture is essential, so I’m afraid I’ll be getting at you over that all week. What we’re aiming for is smoothness of movement. We should _glide_.” Aziraphale swept his arm in a smooth, gentle movement, like he was conducting an imaginary orchestra. “I don’t mean to be rude, and please don’t take it as such, but posture and grace have proven to be your weakest points.”

“And here I thought it was just the dancing.”

“You jest, but Alex Simon Stokes did bring this up immediately after the Charleston—” as if Crowley would remember, “—and though I thought his characterisation of you as a possessed marionette was a _little_ unfair he nevertheless highlighted your tendency towards the erratic—”

“Alright, alright,” said Crowley, dread and desperation churning inside him. “You’ve made your point, let’s just get on with it.”

Aziraphale rubbed his hands together in excitement, which Crowley had never seen anyone do outside of cartoons. “That’s the spirit! I’ll warn you upfront, however: this is going to take a great deal of self-control.”

 _You have no idea_ , thought Crowley.

He realised Aziraphale was watching him expectantly, one arm outstretched.

“Well, come here, then,” he said.

Crowley shuffled forward, and Aziraphale pulled him into position. This felt—well, it felt a lot more intimate than the other dances so far, but Crowley couldn’t tell if that was the positioning or his brand-new and inconvenient realisation that Aziraphale had a body.

“So, the foxtrot is in four count, around medium speed. Not as slow as a waltz, not as high energy as a quickstep. The difficulty, as I said, is the smoothness. A good foxtrot looks effortless. We must be totally in sync.”

“I was just about to say that,” Crowley joked.

“We must be on completely the same wavelength mentally and physically.”

“I was just about to say that, too.”

Aziraphale chuckled. Crowley felt it to his toes.

“Well then, in the interest of communication, perhaps we should take these off,” said Aziraphale. Crowley’s heart dropped into somewhere around his midriff area as Aziraphale gently plucked the sunglasses off Crowley’s face and tucked them in his breast pocket. Crowley suddenly became aware of how easily he had grown comfortable with this small bit of intimacy, how even a week ago he would have been halfway out the door if Aziraphale had tried to touch him with that much familiarity.

Aziraphale placed his hands on Crowley’s hips and pulled him even closer, flush against him. Crowley swallowed. They were pressed so tightly that he could feel the rumble in Aziraphale’s chest as he spoke, even muffled by the layers of cotton and wool. In conversation, Aziraphale’s voice could be high-pitched, flighty; but when he explained things to Crowley his voice had a lulling, rich timbre.

“There we are. Now, when we are in closed position, we must be in one long unbroken line from hip to thigh,” he said. “We stay as sardines together at the lower half, you see? If we drop that, it’s called _gapping_ , and it is a cardinal sin in ballroom competition. Now, as for footwork…”

It had been a long, long time since Crowley had gotten the hots for someone he had no intention of getting into bed, and he’d forgotten how absolutely _excruciating_ it was. He felt like he’d been grabbed by the hair and dunked in lava. He felt like he’d been tossed on a barbecue and left to roast. He kept thinking nonsensical and disturbing things, like, _I want to snog him when he has a mouthful of tea_ and _I want to turn into a snake and slither in between his skin and his jumper._ Worse, every movement of his pelvis kept sending messages to his renegade brain that it was showtime, despite the fact that it was definitely, _definitely_ not. He was sweating after five minutes. Everything about the way Aziraphale was touching him was perfectly professional and, somehow, this made it worse; the disinterested, clinical way he moved Crowley’s body about, as if he weighed no more than a sack of spuds and was about as personally appealing, _did_ something to Crowley that he refused to look at in too much detail.

“I find it helps to think of butter on toast,” said Aziraphale, as Crowley unsurprisingly failed to achieve the grace required of him. “A nice, smooth spread.” He started muttering _“butter on toast, butter on toast”_ in time to the steps, right in Crowley’s ear. This only made matters worse.

Crowley tripped over his own feet more in that rehearsal than he had in the entirety of the previous week. It was awful. Every time Aziraphale’s hand touched his bare arm all the nerves in his body suddenly stopped working except for in that one bit of skin. All he could think, as he lurched about like a zombie in a haze of lust and mortification, was that at least he probably only had a week of this left to suffer through.

“Are you alright, Crowley?” asked Aziraphale eventually, when it became obvious that Crowley was performing even worse than usual and even Aziraphale’s politeness had reached its limit. He looked at Crowley with real concern, which was horrible, and now even the way he said his name was making Crowley feel like—like— _shit_.

“Fine, totally fine. Just feeling a bit. Off. Sore. Overdid it with the Charleston, I think. My muscles are unionising.”

Aziraphale tutted, and began giving Crowley a very thorough once-over with his eyes. Crowley moved out of his space before he could start checking him with his hands, too. “Yes, you do look a little _off_. You know, you’re not a head on stilts, Crowley. Your brain isn’t Baba Yaga’s hut, sitting atop a pair of chicken legs. You do, in fact, have a body, and you should be aware of its needs.”

“Yep. Yes. I’m very aware. In fact, you’re right, maybe I should knock off for the day. I’m going to take a nap, actually. Have a nice bath. Baths are good, right? For muscle stuff. Get some bubbles going. Wine.”

“Oh, that sounds heavenly,” sighed Aziraphale. “I may do the same.”

“No you won’t,” said Crowley defensively, already grabbing his jacket and preparing to flee. “I mean, you can. I’m not stopping you. Enjoy it, if you have one! See you later, alligator.” _Christ_. “Ciao!” _Just murder me._

Newt, in a rare moment of wisdom, did not say goodbye on his way out.

* * *

“Crowley?”

“No, it’s a home invader. ’Course it’s me. Where are you?”

“Living room! How come you’re back so early? I’ve got you down in the planner as rehearsals until seven, although the way you’ve been acting these last couple days I could have predicted this. _You’re_ skirting off.”

“It’s _skiving_ off, and I’m not. Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m gonna run myself a bath. Muscle thing, all— locked up. Tense. Blame Aziraphale.”

“Nope, more fun to blame you. Hey, congratulations by the way. You are now verified in the eyes of God and, more importantly, Twitter.”

“And I should care about this... because? Hang on, is that what you were doing all last week, hiding away online like some conspiracy nut?”

“If by ‘hiding away online like some conspiracy nut’ you mean that I was doing some deep dive research into your emerging fanbase and how best to utilise them to our advantage, then yes, that’s what I was doing all last week. You can tell me how ruthless I am and how much you appreciate me now.”

“You’re ruthless and I appreciate it endlessly. Do we really have a fanbase?”

“You do, all lined up and ready to defend your honour from the small-minded corners of the internet. The few times I’ve come across someone being an asshole they’ve been reported and banned before I’ve even had to lift a finger. The reaction to last week’s show was _incredible_ , you guys even have your very own hashtag. I think some of them are starting to make gifsets; that's how you really know you’ve made it.”

“Yeah yeah yeah, that’s great and all but does this mean I get my Twitter back now?”

“Crowley, you literally only use it once a year to retweet some guy who accidentally tweeted out his own name.”

“Ed Balls Day is a _national holiday_ and deserves to be marked as such. D’you want a glass of wine, I’m taking one in the bath.”

“Please. Anyway, no, you don’t get to have your Twitter account back, I’m really good at running it and I need it to do the weekly livetweet of the show on Saturday night while you’re out there shaking your stuff.”

“There’s a weekly livetweet of the show?”

“There will be from now on. Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

“Oh, hey, before you disappear into the bath for the next three hours— people want to know if you’re wearing a gown this week, considering the dance? Figure it won’t hurt to give them a few sneak previews every now and again, get ‘em excited.”

“Hm? No, not this week. Want to make sure I change it up a bit. Went over the list with Tracy, she knows the what’s and the when’s. It’s tuxes this time. Think we’re booked in for fittings tomorrow.”

“Why are you so determined to make my job harder? If there actually is a list, I need it _yesterday_ , Crowley.”

“Can’t you just _predict_ what I’m going to wear?”

“...”

“Alright, alright, don’t— don’t _kick_ me, I’m holding a very full glass, Anathema, seriously, stop— OI! I’m going, I’m _going!”_

* * *

* * *

“Twenty-three! _Vingt-trois points!”_ Aziraphale bumped shoulders with Crowley, face alight. It was their highest score so far, and they hadn’t had to go in the Dance Off after the votes had been counted, which meant they could stand on the balcony and watch Sable and some former member of a band called The Johnsonites duke it out like they were twin Caesars atop the Coliseum. 

_“Dreiundzwanzig! Veintitrés!”_ Crowley laughed, high on Aziraphale’s enthusiasm and joy.

_“Tri ar hugain!”_

“What’s that one?”

“Welsh!”

“Wha— who speaks _Welsh?”_

“Well I can think of one country where it’s spoken rather frequently, _Crowley._ ”

“What, Norway?”

Aziraphale smacked him lightly on the shoulder, flushed and grinning. They probably shouldn’t be letting their success go to their heads— twenty-three points was hardly stellar, Adam and Eve had gotten thirty-three, and a former war correspondent turned star of the _Gladiator_ reboot named Carmine Zuigiber had topped the list with a whopping thirty-five for her Tango. But it was more than Crowley had ever envisioned getting, and he wasn’t precious enough to think Aziraphale had expected anything close to mediocre either. 

What he was realising—and he hated to admit it—was that he was actually starting to enjoy his time on _Strictly Come Dancing_. The tat and the glitter and the disingenuous nature of it, the sweat and the exhaustion and yeah, alright, the applause. He’d missed performance. He’d missed the risk, and the fear, and that high clear focus. He’d missed being seen. He looked sidelong at Aziraphale, which he could do with relative comfort, now, after a week relearning how to be in the man’s company. Sweat shone at his temples, and his hair was coming loose from where it had been originally slicked back to go under the top hat that Crowley had immediately and _strenuously_ vetoed. He caught Crowley looking, and smiled.

Crowley felt himself preen, just a little. 

“God, I’m dying for a smoke.” He thought wistfully of his long-lost cigarettes, growing lonely and stale wherever Anathema had stashed them. As they got unmiced and debriefed once the judges unanimously agreed Sable would be saved for another week, he watched the audience file out, and spotted more than a few people rooting around in their pockets on the way to the exit. 

Aziraphale sighed hard through his nose. He glanced around to check no-one was watching, and then flipped open his tuxedo jacket like a counterfeit watch salesman. He tapped a suspiciously rectangular shape in his inside pocket.

“Tell no-one,” he intoned, and Crowley boggled.

“You’ve got a pack of fags in your tux, you— you fucking _Sean_ _Connery bastard_ ,” he hissed. No wonder Crowley was all over the place, libidinally speaking. Every time he thought he’d got the measure of Aziraphale, gathered enough data to feed through the little rationalisation machine in his head, Aziraphale revealed a personal tidbit like this and Crowley had to start all over again. His calculations were always off.

“I do, I do, I know it’s terrible,” groaned Aziraphale. His eyebrows knitted in distress; Crowley was elated. “I gave it up years ago but in my defence it’s been a _very_ stressful month—”

“What’s terrible is that you’ve been carrying those about all this time and _not offered me one_ ,” said Crowley. “Come _on._ We deserve this. _I_ deserve this. Is there somewhere we can go where no-one will see us? What’s the media professional equivalent of a bike shed?”

Aziraphale considered a moment, his fingers tapping out a rhythm on the carton. “The roof?” he suggested. “Though it might be a bit nippy.”

“Cannot tell you how little I care. Gimme a sec to grab my phone and up we go.”

Costume backstage was packed, but Madame Tracy’s was blessedly empty when Crowley darted inside. Like a lot of historic delinquents he’d trespassed on instinct, so he hung about in the middle of the room for a minute, waiting for his conscious mind to catch up with his impulses. His eyes alighted on a familiar rack of costumes _. Aha._

“As long as we’re being disorderly, we might as well be drunk,” he whispered to Aziraphale, diving behind Tracy’s racks of silk and sequins and rummaging until he found what he was looking for. _Tracy, you blessed lush_. He passed an unopened bottle of whisky and two glasses from the trolley back to Aziraphale, who raised an eyebrow but no objections. In fact, he _giggled_. 

“We had better leave a note,” he whispered. 

Crowley scribbled, _“I was the whisky bandit sry. Buy you another 1 xoxo Crowley”_ on the back of a receipt and tucked it in the frame of a mirror where she would be sure to notice. Then he and Aziraphale ran, Aziraphale hiding the bottle under his jacket like they were smuggling contraband, towards the roof.

It is almost impossible to make out the stars in London—the buildings and the smog and the light pollution keep them at bay—but the moon still breaks through, and they could see it low and white and waxing in the intermissions of cloud. It _was_ cold. Aziraphale was right, it had been a stressful month, and they had tumbled from September through to October with barely a pause for breath.

“Will Tracy not be peeved that we’ve nicked off in her costumes?” asked Crowley, kicking the door closed behind them and flopping down onto the roof. He rubbed the lapel of his jacket between his fingers. “What actually happens to these, anyway? Do they get auctioned off after the series?”

Aziraphale gave him an amused look as he tried to get the bottle open. “Do you really think the BBC is flogging your memorabilia, Crowley?”

“Wouldn’t put it past them. Besides, you don’t know how much people would pay for my sweaty knickers.”

“Neither do you, I hope.”

Crowley winced. “Unfortunately I _do_.”

Aziraphale stopped struggling with the bottle and looked at him in horror. “Oh _no,_ ” he said, with an equal mix of dismay and ecstatic disbelief.

“Yup.”

“How much?”

“I’m not telling you.”

Aziraphale returned to his task. “Well, I’m sure your undergarments are quite safe now. I don’t wish to be insensitive, but your market value may possibly have declined in recent years.”

“Ha bloody ha. Can you get that whisky open or will it take a team effort?” 

“Oh very well, here.”

Crowley got the top off the bottle and cast around for the glasses, worried he might kick them over in the dark. When he looked up his breath died in his throat. Aziraphale had an unlit cigarette between his lips, and was rummaging around in his jacket for a lighter.

Crowley didn’t know why he hadn’t foreseen this. _Smoking is bad for you_ , the sensible part of his brain said to him. _Smoking is very bad for you, and that’s why all those signs are everywhere, and that’s why you quit, and that’s why Anathema is burying your tabs in the woods._ But the part of Crowley that had grown up pre-ban had never quite let go of the knowledge, inconvenient as it was, that to him? Smoking still looked _sexy_.

Aziraphale found his lighter. “There’s the boy,” he mumbled around the cigarette. Crowley caught a flash of gold. Aziraphale cupped his hand around the tip, shielding it from the faint breeze, and clicked the lighter. For a moment, the flame illuminated his cheekbones, the bridge of his nose, the slight hollow in his cheeks. The tip of the cigarette glowed.

He snapped the lighter shut. He took his first inhale; Crowley saw his eyelids flutter closed. When he exhaled, the smoke escaped in a rush between parted lips and twisted into the dark.

 _“That’s_ the ticket,” he said, and there was a bit of a moan behind it.

Crowley took a gulp of whisky. He didn’t even bother with a glass.

Aziraphale passed Crowley a cluster of objects, and it was then that Crowley realised he didn’t have a pack of cigarettes at all, but a cigarette _case_ . A _gold_ cigarette case. A gold, _monogrammed_ cigarette case, and a lighter to match.

“Too good for a pack of Lucky Strikes and a Zippo, are you?”

“Would you believe they were an eighteenth birthday present?”

Crowley scoffed, shaking himself out a tab. “When did you turn eighteen, the nineteen-thirties?”

Aziraphale shifted the way he did when he had been caught out with yet another embarrassing habit. “They’re, ah, from the forties, actually.”

“Of course they are.”

Aziraphale chuckled. “You haven’t heard the worst of it. I’ve a collection of Regency snuff boxes at home. I had to give up snuff decades ago, though— people seem to find snorting things in public rather off-putting behaviour.”

The image of Aziraphale trying to have a pinch of snuff on the Tube was ridiculous enough to knock Crowley back into focus. He’d been like this all week, veering wildly from lust to bafflement like he was trapped in _commedia dell'arte_. He lit his own cigarette, and the relief of the nicotine hit momentarily restored equilibrium.

Aziraphale was watching him. He held his cigarette in his cupped hand like an officer in an RC Sheriff play, effete and masculine and careless all at once. Crowley passed him the bottle; Aziraphale, ever the fastidious sort, poured himself two inches in one of Tracy’s glasses. He poured Crowley one as well, which felt pointed. No swigging allowed, apparently. 

“Just a single, I’m driving,” he said ruefully. Tracy’s whisky was good, as he knew it would be, and he was going to have to nurse it like an ailing lamb. Aziraphale murmured something that sounded like “very responsible”, which took the edge off a bit. In a just and fair world the two of them could stay on the roof all night and get pissed well into the early hours. He leaned against the lip of the roof. It was just high enough that he could prop his elbow there comfortably, after a quick scan for pigeon shit. Below them, the stream of people exiting the studio had slowed to a trickle, and he listened to the repeating echo of car doors thudding closed. Crowley was pretty sure they weren’t visible up here, and if they were noticed at all, it would be as vague silhouettes above the BBC lightbox signage. 

“We did good, tonight,” he said, for the sake of having something to say. 

“We did, rather.”

“Not quite Richard Gleave, but.” Crowley had, in fact, looked him up, and he refused to let himself be embarrassed about it.

“Of course not, but we earned a meaty share of the public vote, from what I’ve heard. The plan is working. A successful caper so far, I’d say.” Aziraphale beamed, and held out his glass. Crowley clinked. 

“I’d say so, too. Think I might even learn to dance, by the end of this.”

“Don’t put yourself down, you’re coming along.” Aziraphale gave him a once-over, similar in nature to the one he’d given him at rehearsal. “Are you taking care of yourself?”

“Oh, regularly.” _T_ _wice a day, sometimes_ , he almost said, but clamped his teeth around his tongue just in time. 

“Good.” Crowley was lucky he’d got the horn for someone so utterly oblivious to innuendo. “This competition requires a drastic uptick in physical exertion in a very short space of time. It’s important to keep an eye on your health.” This was an incredibly rich statement, given what they were doing, but Crowley declined to point that out. Aziraphale leaned against the wall, whisky in one hand, cigarette in the other, flicking his ash into the chill October breeze. He had loosened his bow tie and a single button on his shirt; Crowley was mesmerised. It was the contrast that got him. For a man who lived his day-to-day muffled in fabric and order, one undone button was practically indecent, one vice total indulgence. But then, Aziraphale was no stranger to indulgence, was he? Crowley had noticed that about him from the first.

Aziraphale sipped his whisky, and Crowley watched the line of his throat, the bob as he swallowed. 

“Matryoshka,” he said, suddenly. 

Aziraphale blinked. “Yes?”

“They’re those dolls. The Russian ones. They’ve got smaller ones inside?”

“Yes, I do know what a Matryoshka is.” 

“You’re like— you’re like a Matryoshka doll in jumpers,” he said, feeling a bit stupid but a lot right. “On the outside it’s all fuss and caution, but oh, what’s inside that? One layer down, it’s schemes and insubordination. A layer down from _that_ it’s booze and illicit cigarettes.”

Aziraphale bristled. “You’re surprised to learn that I am a human being, with layers?”

“I never suspected.”

“We’ve never known each other well.” 

Crowley was very much not driving this conversation, despite all evidence to the contrary, but he made an effort to steer them away from that particular pothole. 

“Let’s change that, then,” he said. He shuffled slightly closer along the wall. “He drinks, he smokes, he hates the cha cha cha. He prefers white wine and books, has a real penchant for oysters—”

“Dear me,” said Aziraphale, a twinkle in his eye, “where did you learn all that?”

“Read it in a magazine.” Crowley felt lightheaded. Aziraphale had finished his cigarette. He stubbed it out on the wall, making sure it was totally extinguished before pocketing the butt. Crowley had just chucked his on the floor. Without asking, Aziraphale handed him another cigarette, lit his own—Crowley watched him, hungrily—then stepped forward to light Crowley’s. Crowley kept very still. A week of exposure therapy had dulled the impact somewhat, but having Aziraphale in his space still sent a confused set of signals skittering through his brain. He felt like a rat who kept slamming his little paw into the pleasure button repeatedly even though it was eventually going to kill him. A thousand films played on a supercut in his mind; _Bogarts and Brandos and Newmans, oh my._ The burn from the cigarette, the burn from the whisky, the burn in his muscles and the pit of his stomach; Crowley felt like he was all filled up with smoke, and watching it spill out of him on a shaky exhale seemed like a natural reaction from a body that was on fire inside. 

“My point is—my point is, on occasion— _very_ rarely, mind you, so don’t get a big head about this— you have demonstrated a whiff of cool. So I’m wondering, what else is there, then? What hidden talents does Aziraphale Fell possess?”

“Lots.”

“Like?”

Aziraphale paused. He took another sip of whisky. “Well. I can tap dance,” he said finally.

This was not at all what Crowley had been expecting. 

“You what?”

“It’s a percussive dance, you do it in hard-soled shoes—”

“I know what it _is_ , I’m just taken aback,” said Crowley. “Tap dance? Really?”

Aziraphale’s face settled into that puffed-up, indignant expression Crowley had gotten to know so well. “What’s wrong with tap dance?” he demanded.

“Well, it’s hardly _cool_ , is it?”

“Tap dancing is very cool!” Aziraphale seemed genuinely shocked. “And— and I’ll prove it. Prepare to eat crow, Anthony J Crowley.” He downed his whisky and poured himself another, digging his phone out from another hidden pocket of his jacket. He fiddled about for a moment, but turned out not to have the YouTube app, so Crowley had to track down _I Get A Kick Out of You_ on _his_ phone and it took him three goes to find the right version for Aziraphale’s purposes. Crowley turned the volume as high as it would go and placed it just inside a metal vent, to serve as a makeshift amplifier. 

“Right,” said Aziraphale. He suddenly looked a little nervous, and more than a little tipsy. His eyes darted up to Crowley as if to check he was still there, like Crowley had any plans, at all, of going anywhere. Aziraphale handed him his glass, like it was Crowley’s problem now, as so many things were. “Off we go.”

The song started, and for a moment he just stood there, arms by his sides. Then he took a breath.

He began to tap dance.

If someone had asked Crowley a week ago, a day ago, an hour ago, hell, even a _minute_ ago if he found tap dancing sexy, he’d have laughed in their face. But now here he was, staring at Aziraphale as he moved. It looked effortless. Or no, that wasn’t right, it looked like it took effort, but it looked like the effort pleased him. It was part of it. Crowley’s thoughts ran straight down the alley between _pleasure of effort_ and _effort of pleasure_ and then slammed into a brick wall. Aziraphale’s brow was slightly furrowed in concentration, the corner of his mouth quirked up as if he couldn’t quite keep the grin off his face. Crowley took him in, the cigarette dangling from his lip, the open collar, the curl of hair that had come loose and fallen over his forehead. All at once it slammed into him full-force, a week of denial and repression and furtive asides. 

He _wanted_ Aziraphale.

It wasn’t a misfiring of electrical signals or a temporary disorder of chemistry. Whatever this was, it was settling into Crowley’s bones. It would be here for the long haul. Aziraphale did a strange and delicate bit of footwork, looked up at Crowley and _winked directly at him_ , and every part of Crowley’s body agreed on something, for once. 

Well. This past month, Crowley had learned a lot of new things about himself. What was one more? 

Aziraphale danced for the entire song, most likely because Crowley didn’t tell him to stop. He finished his whisky, and was sorely tempted to start on Aziraphale’s. Instead he settled with his back against the wall, arms spread, watching Aziraphale do something beautiful and complex and skilful, just for Crowley. Time and again Aziraphale would glance up, checking that yes, Crowley hadn’t moved, yes, he was still watching. Of course Crowley was. As he had so recently learned, it was nice to be seen.

The song finished, and Aziraphale’s feet clattered to a stop, and he took a little bow that was so proud and sheepish and strangely vulnerable that Crowley started clapping.

“Wow,” he said honestly. “I stand completely corrected. I hold up my hands, that was very… cool.”

“Put _that_ in your pipe and smoke it,” said Aziraphale. He was breathing a little hard; he took his handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his brow. Crowley debated how much that sweaty handkerchief would fetch, and whether he’d be willing to pay for it. 

Neither of them had noticed it grow dark. The first drop of rain landed on Aziraphale’s suit, a single, pound-sized patch on his lapel. He barely had time to frown before the heavens opened. 

“ _Shit_ ,” yelled Crowley, and the two of them turned as one and sprinted towards the door. Aziraphale jiggled the handle. 

“Oh dear,” he said.

“Oh dear? What does ‘oh dear’ mean? Don’t say ‘oh dear’.”

“It means the door won’t open,” said Aziraphale desperately.

“What? Yes it will, don’t be daft.” Crowley shoved him out of the way, rattling the handle. It didn’t move. “Oh dear,” he said. 

“Well, I did say.”

Crowley banged hard on the door. He also kicked it, ineffectually. “OI!” he shouted. “Mayday! SOS! We’re celebrities, get us the _fuck_ out of here!” No response. The rain pounded hard on Crowley’s head and shoulders, flattening his hair and making him feel like a drenched cat.

“For fuck’s _sake_ ,” he swore.

“You did kick the door closed,” said Aziraphale, and once again, Crowley was baffled as to how he had wound up fancying this overgrown hall monitor. He went over to the lip of the roof. Someone was shrieking— round the corner came Adam and Eve, screaming and laughing and kicking up water. Adam was holding an umbrella over Eve’s head. They stopped in the middle of the car park, and Eve snatched the umbrella from Adam, folding it shut with a snap and pointing it at him like a sword. He raised his hands in mock surrender. Maybe he said something, maybe not, but his grin was visible even from the roof. Eve spun and spun in the rain, again laughing, and the joy that poured off her could have flooded the world. Adam just stood there, soaking in it and getting soaked. 

“That’s my umbrella,” said Aziraphale. 

Crowley hadn’t noticed him come over. “Yeah?”

“Yes. I thought she might need it more than we. It seems my attempt at gallantry was misplaced.” They both watched them, playing in the rain and puddles like children. “Bless them,” he added, quietly.

Crowley shivered. Without speaking, Aziraphale took off his tux jacket and held it, white and sodden, over his head. It was pretty much useless, but Crowley edged closer all the same.

“Thanks,” he said.

There was the sound of footsteps, and then a banging noise, and then Deputy Security Guard Newt burst through the door, wild-eyed and panicked as was his custom.

“Thank Christ. I mean. Er, hello,” he said. Crowley had never thought he would be happy to see Newt, and yet at that moment he was Crowley’s favourite person in the world. “Um. You’re—”

“Yes, yes, I _know_ , we’re not supposed to be up here,” grumbled Crowley, running towards the open door. “We get it, we’re very sorry, tell Shadwell—”

“No, erm, actually I was going to say that your manager is looking for you, Mr. Crowley, and she’s a bit annoyed, and she’s quite scary, and she’s right behind—” But by that point, Crowley had already barrelled past him and had encountered Anathema on the stairs, arms crossed and one eyebrow raised, looking a little bit over the border of Annoyed and well into the People’s Republic of Pissed. 

* * *

It had been, in Aziraphale’s opinion, a rather odd week.

All of his weeks had been a little odd since he and Crowley were thrown together by the whims of fate—or, that is to say, the ham-fisted dealings of scheming showrunners—but this week was a strong contender for first place in the oddness runnings. Saturday night, post-show and post-Poppins reveal, Aziraphale had thought their little team might have celebrated together. Though he’d not known for certain that reactions would be overwhelmingly positive, he had faith, and it was rewarded tenfold. He’d bought a bottle of _decent_ champagne and stashed it in Costume with intent to drag Crowley and Anathema back there with Tracy and toast to a job very well done. Aziraphale had even prepared a little speech for the occasion— nothing grandiose, of course, just a simple address. So when the cameras stopped rolling and the rest of the dancing couples swarmed them with warm congratulations and encouragement, Aziraphale had been a bit put out to turn to his left and find Crowley in the wind, as it were. He tried not to let it bother him too much. Crowley deserved a little time to escape and decompress. Aziraphale was certain he would be in touch by morning to discuss their next moves; perhaps to suggest another “mini victory brunch”, as he had done the week before. The champagne could keep.

He heard nothing at all from Crowley on Sunday. 

By the time Monday rolled around, Aziraphale was sick to his back teeth of looking at his phone every few minutes. He worried that he had perhaps inadvertently allowed Crowley to Charleston in high heels before he could crawl. Aziraphale had no legitimate way of keeping tabs on the social medias, and he couldn’t rule out the possibility that Crowley was not contacting him because he was tucked away somewhere avoiding the cruelties of the outside world. When he arrived at the studio Monday morning, rather than heading to the rehearsal space, he found himself seeking solace in Costume. 

_“It’ll be fine, love,”_ Tracy had placated him, ushering him right back out the door. _“Even if it isn’t, you’ll sort it out. Worst thing for him now would be to turn up at that studio and find you not there.”_

The week’s rehearsals had been, to put it delicately, not _ideal_. Crowley was flighty, and Crowley would not stop staring, and Crowley was distracted, and Crowley was intensely attentive all in fits and starts. One moment they would be feather stepping, and not doing a bad job of it if he did say so himself, and the next Crowley would be running out the door with some flimsy excuse. Once he had blurted _“I forgot to yell at my houseplants today”_ which was just absurd. But Aziraphale was patient, and Aziraphale was forgiving, and Aziraphale had put a lot of stock into convincing himself he was both of these things so he’d just have to make a good go of it.

Here, now, sitting in the front seat of Crowley’s very fancy and well-kept automobile—an observation that caused Crowley to practically _glow_ with pride—Aziraphale was pleased to find that his efforts had not been in vain. Their dance had gone very well, even _sans chapeaux_ , and they had further cemented their bond as partners. Aziraphale had indulged Crowley in an illicit shared cigarette and Crowley had indulged Aziraphale in allowing him to demonstrate one of his favourite skills. Reciprocity, that was the key. An odd week, certainly, but one with a very fine ending nonetheless.

“It really is terribly kind of you to give me a lift,” Aziraphale said, once he had recovered from his initial reaction to the speed at which they found themselves leaving the _Strictly_ lot. 

“S’not a big deal. On the way,” Crowley said, half-shrugging.

“Well, it’s a _big deal_ to me. I would have been drenched waiting for a taxi to reach the studios at this hour, and they never drop me off close enough to my door.” He failed to mention that this was due to the various legalities of parking on his street, but only because he knew Crowley would most likely get a kick out of discovering that for himself once they arrived. “Two rescues in one night! I honestly can’t tell you what I would have done if young Newt hadn’t been available to let us back into the building. For an awful moment I thought I’d have to call Gabriel to explain the situation, and I hate to give that man another sliver of ammunition.”

A sort of stillness had come over Crowley. Aziraphale had seen it before, in the rehearsal that Michael had interrupted. His posture hadn’t changed a bit, but Aziraphale braced himself regardless as though he were about to be dealt a blow.

“Why do you let them treat you like that?”

Aziraphale wasn’t an unintelligent man. He’d known this conversation would have to happen sooner rather than later, but he hadn’t been prepared for it to be now. So much for the very fine end to the week.

“I’m only asking because—” Crowley continued, taking Aziraphale’s silence as approval to continue, “—because I've watched you wage guerrilla warfare against your bosses for more than a month now, so I know you're no pushover. You’re _brilliant_ , and smart, and you…” He trailed off, clearing his throat. “Look, you’re just better. Better than that lot, at any rate. Gabriel couldn’t tap dance on a roof to save his life. You’re the one out there every week doing the work, people tune in to see _you._ You make the show what it is— so why?”

Aziraphale wished he could bask in the compliments Crowley had paid him amongst all of the floundering, half-formed sentences, but sadly, he could not. Not with a clear conscience.

“Ah, yes, well. It’s a bit of a funny story, actually,” he started to respond, with the sort of stilted laughter that indicated exactly how funny he thought the story really was. “I’ve been with the show longer than most. Longer than anyone, actually. Gabriel himself scouted me for the job, about a decade ago, when I wasn’t quite sure what turn my career was about to take.” He paused and knew they were both thinking of the exact same thing. He pressed on. “You’re right that they know I’m a solid fixture, but I’m also not particularly… _exciting_. Same sort of music, same sort of routines. I appeal to the classicists amongst the ballroom enthusiasts, but I don’t bring in new audiences the way the dancers with a little more _va-va-voom_ going for them do.”

_“Va-va-voom?"_

“Oh, shush. In any case, Gabriel has made it plain in recent years—without saying so aloud, mind you—that he and the team would like nothing more than to replace me, and last season I all but gave them the perfect opportunity to do so.”

“What can you have possibly done? Accidentally sent Gabriel an email calling him a pompous git? Told Michael that _Saints and Sinners_ is the most overproduced piece of shit on television?” Crowley snorted. “Danced a waltz in 4/4 time?”

Ordinarily he would have bristled even at such an implication in _jest_ , but couldn’t quite muster up the energy for it. _May as well confess now,_ he thought.

“Last year I was partnered with Lilith Clayton. A lovely girl— she and Adam actually ended up becoming involved—who was very capable, extremely competent and easy to teach from the get-go. No offence of course, my dear—”

“None taken, I suppose.”

“—and we actually reached the final together. I’d gotten to the semi-final before, of course, but I’m normally partnered with older women who never make it past the mid-way point, whether by design of the show or lack of interest from the voting public. Whatever the reason, this was my first time with a proper shot at winning.”

Crowley had stopped at a red light, and took the opportunity to cast him a quick glance.

“And?”

“Well, obviously we _didn’t_ win. The public liked us up until they didn’t, I fear. Mind you, the winners absolutely deserved it. There’s no disputing that. Beryl and her partner had several perfect scores under their lycra and it was fairly obvious they were going to take home the trophy but, still. It was a nice thought while it lasted. I had my foolish hopes quite thoroughly dashed, so after filming was done that night I got very, very drunk.”

“And that’s when you sent the email to Gabriel telling him to naff off?”

“Not quite. I cleaned out my reserves of _Châteauneuf-du-Pape_ and penned a tweet of congratulations to the victors.”

“Can you pen a tweet?”

_“Crowley.”_

“Sorry, sorry, paying attention, promise. So then what happened?”

“Well,” he swallowed. “I tweeted it.”

Though the light had turned green, Crowley—and so the Bentley—remained stationary. The car behind them tooted its horn, which prompted Crowley to break himself out of his confoundment in order to make a very rude gesture before gunning off into the night once more.

“Hang on, so— what? They’re punishing you for being a _gracious loser?"_

“Crowley. I tweeted it on the Saturday night.”

“I’m not following, how’d you mean?”

“I mean I tweeted it on the bloody Saturday night, almost an entire twenty-four hours before the finale would premiere on BBC One!”

“Ah. So you—”

“Gave it away, yes. Spoiled the whole thing. Michael was furious. She was the first to notice and notified the rest of the production team. I sadly didn’t grasp the amount of trouble I was in until much later— I never really make a habit of checking my mobile telephone, and I had the most dreadful hangover when I woke up so it was mid-Sunday afternoon by the time I thought to pick up the damn thing.”

Aziraphale purposefully neglected to mention the part where his landline had also rung several times that morning, while he was still in bed and nursing a pounding headache to rival the rhythm of a samba, but only because he’d decided it wasn’t quite relevant. There was no way to _prove_ those calls had come from Head Office and, even if they had been, nobody had left him a message so _whoever_ it was really hadn’t been trying very hard to reach him.

“I only realised what had happened when I opened a very _terse_ email from Uriel in legal, reminding me of the social media policy. I took the tweet straight down, of course, but you know how these things go— people took screen-shoots and all but plastered it across the internet, several news sites wrote dreadful articles collating all the outrage it had caused amongst the fans, et cetera. Much too late for me to undo what had been done.”

Aziraphale let his forehead rest against the window pane of the car door and closed his eyes. 

“Someone up there must have been looking out for me, as thankfully they didn’t fire me on the spot when I came in for my contract re-negotiation that week. Gabriel claimed to be the one who fought my corner—I’d be surprised if that were at _all_ true—and said that though they were willing to give me one more chance, it would be the very last chance I had.”

The car slowed to a halt. The engine continued to rumble in the silence. Aziraphale opened his eyes, surprised to find they were outside his home, although with the manner in which Crowley drove perhaps he should have expected this to be a short journey. Crowley fidgeted in his seat, looking out of the window at Aziraphale’s building for a second before turning to face him.

“Look, Aziraphale, don’t take this the wrong way but,” Crowley said, and he almost looked _unimpressed_. “Is that _it?”_

“Wh—” Aziraphale blinked. “What do you mean, _is that it?”_

“I mean, is that all you did? I thought you’d done something _wrong_ , but it sounds to me like you just did something _nice_.” This was said with Crowley’s customary inflection on the word. “Yeah, maybe jumped the gun a bit, but it’s only reality TV. Not the end of the world, is it? You go online, guarantee you, there are thousands of blogs with people spoiling this show left and right and they definitely won’t be saying charming things about the winners when they do it.”

“You don’t know that it was charming,” Aziraphale said, feeling a strange little spark of pleasure as he watched Crowley’s face split into a grin. “It could have been drunkenly misspelled and overbearing. It could have had _inappropriate hashtags_.”

“I’m sure it was the most downright _delightful_ spoiler ever written, angel,” Crowley’s grin widened, and he leaned slightly into the space between them as though this was a secret they could now share, a private joke Aziraphale had let him in on rather than the very public _faux pas_ that he’d been fretting about for an entire year of his life. It was quite a lovely feeling, actually.

“Is that why you’re not on social media anymore?” Anathema asked from the backseat, where Aziraphale had quite forgotten she was, given how unusually silent she’d been for the entire journey. Crowley had clearly also forgotten as he near jumped out of his skin when she spoke.

“Part of my re-negotiation,” he confirmed, looking back at her and giving Crowley time to collect himself. “I consider myself fortunate to still have a job, being banned from any form of online interaction is a small price to pay.”

“Well, I’m sure I can figure out a way to work around that. I don’t wanna lose the ground you two have gained with the general public after last week, especially online. Just because we made it through again tonight doesn’t mean anything’s a guarantee, not in this business.” Anathema waggled her phone at him. “Compared to teaching you to use emojis, getting you back onto social media under your bosses’ noses’ll be a cinch. Let me workshop some ideas this weekend and I’ll text you on Monday?”

“Quite right, my dear, quite right. I leave all that in your very capable hands,” Aziraphale said, gathering up his things. “And now I shall take my leave of you, as it’s getting late and I anticipate an early start to prepare for next week’s show. Crowley, I know Sundays are your day off, but would you care to join me again for brunch? There’s this simply divine place in Shoreditch I’ve been hearing about, with a gospel choir that performs while you eat— quite appropriate, when you hear what I have in mind for our performance.”

Crowley made a few abortive noises in response and didn’t look at him at all, frozen in place. Anathema leant forward, placing a gentle-but-firm looking hand on Crowley’s shoulder. 

“Unfortunately, Crowley has a pressing matter to discuss with me in the morning. We _should_ have talked about it last Sunday, but he decided to talk to other parties, and so now we have a lot of catching up to do.” She smiled sweetly at Aziraphale, and her grip on Crowley’s shoulder seemed to tighten just a touch. “He’s very sorry he can’t make it to brunch, though. _Aren’t_ you, Crowley?”

Crowley looked as though he was going to be sick. What could Anathema have meant? Was Crowley seeking alternative representation? Aziraphale’s position on Anathema Device had entirely turned around since they initially met, and in his opinion Crowley would be completely mad to shop around now— not to mention that it would be poor form after she’d done so much for them. He’d possibly ask about it at their rehearsal on Monday, if there was anything left of Crowley by then.

“Ah, well, no matter. Another Sunday, I’m sure! Thank you again, Crowley, for the lift,” he gave Crowley’s knee an encouraging little pat before dashing towards his front door. It was only a hop, skip and a jump across the street, but the rain really _was_ coming down hard, and he nipped into his vestibule with uncommon speed. Aziraphale turned to wave the two of them off and found Anathema had clambered over the bench to sit in the front seat. She leant over to wind down the driver’s-side window and started to yell something to him with a grin on her face, but Crowley apparently chose that exact moment to slam his foot on the accelerator. The wheels of the Bentley _shrieked_ and almost, but not quite, covered the sound of Anathema calling “Goodnight, _angel!”_ before they were off into the night. He would have sworn he heard Anathema’s laughter bouncing around in the gentle pitter-patter of the rain, long after the car had disappeared down the end of his street.

A rather odd week, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mort](https://mortifyingideal.tumblr.com/) & marginalia here! first things first, got some incredible art of last week's chapter by both our creative collaborator [naniiebim](https://naniiebimworks.tumblr.com/post/621915116150079488/naniiebimworks-week-4-loosely-ballroom-fic-by) and a very lovely [nonnie](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24867475) too!
> 
> and finally not to do an emotion at you in the author's notes again but honestly the response to the last chapter was unbelievable. we're very humbled (well not mort so much, takes a lot to humble that one) and just so very grateful that you're all here. thank you.


	6. Week Five — The Jive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **7:00pm** — Everyone's (well, some people's) favourite Strictly contestants jitterbug their way into the public's collective heart, and into the crosshairs of the competition. A professional reconsiders his foolish notions, a manager listens without prejudice, and a dancer turned Deep Throat fears careless whispers. Let us take you dancing tonight for Week Five!

Crowley woke up on Sunday morning, which was regrettable. His phone was pinging away like anything and clearly sick of being ignored. He cracked open one eye, waiting for his brain to boot up and things to come into focus. Beyond the borders of his flat Crowley could hear birdsong trilling, and distant traffic, and despite it being mid-October there was some gorgeous sunlight filtering in from outside his duvet cavern. Taking stock of things, he felt completely refreshed, entirely relaxed; before his phone roused him out of sleep he had been having an unusually innocent dream about driving out to a sweet little village in the middle of nowhere and feeding some ducks at a pond. He could still feel the soft edges of it, the pleasant feeling that had coursed through him thanks to both the simplicity and yes, _alright,_ the _company_ that had joined him for his romp through dreamland. The setting may have been new but the company definitely wasn’t— again, this was an _unusually_ innocent dream for Crowley as of late. 

The longer he lay there, the more the little details of the dream began to slide away from him like whatever it was that slid off dream-based ducks. Refusing to emerge from his blanket nest to face the day just yet, he slapped his hand around on the edge of the mattress until he made contact and dragged his poor unsuspecting phone back into his dark lair. The notification waiting on his lock screen informed him that he’d won the eBay auction he’d been furiously bidding on for the past two weeks. He, @devereauxneehollingsworth, was now the proud owner of _GENUINE 100% ORIGINAL VINTAGE 1967 PROMO MATERIAL/MEMORABILIA 007 VINYL BULLET DECALS 4 WINDSCREEN! NEVER OPENED!_ (pending payment and two to three days for shipping). No point going back to sleep now. Crowley took care of paying for his spoils and finally poked his head out of the cocoon. It was a lovely morning. Pity about the shipping time on those vinyl decals, though.

It was a shame, Crowley thought, a real shame that he wouldn’t live to receive them, seeing as Anathema was most likely going to kill him today.

His phone pinged again.

> [ **8:45** ] I know you’re awake, Crowley.  
> [ **8:46** ] There’s coffee in the living room when you’re ready.
> 
> if i fire u will it mean i dnt hav 2 hav ths convo? [ **8:46** ]
> 
> [ **8:46** ] Hold on lemme check.   
> [ **8:47** ] 🎱  
> [ **8:47** ] My sources say no.  
> [ **8:50** ] Stop making that face at your phone and come talk to me, idiot.

Anathema, when he finally stopped making that face and forced himself into the living room, was sat curled in the corner of the sofa with her feet tucked up beneath her. The pose made her look small, unthreatening. _Soft._

He’d never been so unnerved in his life. 

She patted the spot on the sofa next to her and he slowly took his place, expecting a lapful of leg any second. It didn’t come, and Crowley wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. On the edge of the coffee table he noticed a slim, rectangular package wrapped in glittery paper. Crowley looked at it the way one might look at a very round-topped pie with a lit fuse sticking out of it.

“What’s that?”

“Not important right now,” Anathema said. The TV was on but the screen was black, something on pause that he couldn’t read the title of this early in the morning. He probably needed glasses at his big age, but like hell was he going to admit that to anyone. Judging from the planning journal lying open on the floor, it was last night’s episode of _Strictly;_ Anathema’s indecipherable notes on their performance already covered a whole page. She mercifully poured him a coffee from a giant moka pot, passing it to Crowley before sorting her own. He grunted a thanks. She nodded, took a sip, and continued to say absolutely nothing. Crowley forced himself to match her on the sip count, taking it slow; there was a fine science to this. Too little and he’d be completely unprepared to defend himself against whatever was about to happen. Too much and he’d be jittery, nervous, jumping at the slightest sound and flying off the handle the moment Anathema started to talk. She was no doubt about to unleash upon his still sleep-addled person a barrage of disapproving looks, stern lectures and multilingual insults. He readied himself for the worst. 

“You have to admit, it’s a little funny,” she finally said.

“It’s not even _remotely_ funny.”

“Oh come on, it totally is.” As if to prove how _totally funny_ it was, she started laughing. Offense rippled through Crowley like a glove had been slapped down on the coffee table, but he wasn’t sure whose honour he was most motivated to defend here.

“Even if I knew what you were on about—which I _don’t,_ by the way—bit savage of you, yeah? Is the idea of him being—” He struggled to think of a word that didn’t sound ridiculous. _Attractive? Hot? So sexy I’ve even started having disgustingly twee dreams about feeding ducks with him?_ All were terrible, so he opted out of the experience entirely. “—really so laughable? Sure he’d be chuffed to hear that. Go on, text him then, seeing as you two are so _chummy._ Let him know how you really feel.”

“That isn’t what I mean and you know it, you’re just being spiky,” Anathema grinned at him, one of her feet emerging from beneath her so she could poke his thigh with her big toe. “The part where it’s funny? Is the part where it took you _this long_ to figure it out.”

“Oh, like _you_ knew,” Crowley scoffed, deciding that meting out his caffeine intake for this conversation was no longer top priority. He downed the rest of his mug and poured himself another one immediately.

“Of course I did.” She held out her mug for a top up. She hadn’t even finished drinking her first one yet. _Americans._ “I knew like, the day you got partnered up. Before then, even.”

Crowley threw her a disbelieving look. She threw one right back, with a little curve on it. 

“Crowley, it’s—”

“If you’re about to imply that we have some sort of indescribable compatibility based on which planet was getting it on with which moon at the times of our births I really _will_ fire you.”

 _But tell me about the compatibility thing first_ , he thought distractedly, pouring her coffee.

And then, with clear mounting horror, _what have I become._

“I was _going_ to say that it’s probably not the worst thing. A little bit of tension. Frisson on the dancefloor.”

 _“Frisson?!_ Who’s been teaching you words like— ah.”

Anathema smirked at him.

“Don’t sound so surprised. We’re _chummy,_ remember? I can admit—out loud, like a grown up—that, despite first impressions, I like him.”

She took another sip of coffee, as though to punctuate her point, and did not break eye contact with him. The quirk of her brow was unmistakable. It clearly said, _your turn._

“Well I’m very pleased for both of you. Send me an invite to the wedding, yeah?” He let himself relax back into the sofa, satisfied with his ability to dodge anything resembling genuine emotion, and eyed her victoriously over the top of his mug. Anathema leant across and plucked it out of his hands, ignoring his little sound of protest as she placed it on the end table next to her.

“Fine. Be that way. So you wouldn’t mind, then, if I wanted to watch your performance back with you?”

Actually, that didn’t sound too bad. They hadn’t done a terrible job at the foxtrot if the scores were anything to go by, and some horrid little part of him that didn’t know what was good for itself wanted to see whatever it was in the routine that had made Stefano make _that_ particular comment.

“Why would I mind?”

“No reason.”

She hit play and the screen burst into life. Aziraphale’s face flooded it, but it wasn’t the footage from last night. It was Movie Week. It was the fucking Charleston.

Crowley had avoided watching the Charleston the way he avoided fugu fish and games of Russian Roulette— he knew there was a probability he’d get out of the experience alive, but the fun he’d have finding out wasn’t worth those kinds of odds, thanks. The singer belted out the line _“and open a book tonight in bed”_ which was the _exact moment_ Aziraphale made eye contact with Crowley through the fourth wall, tipped his hat, and Crowley _flung_ himself off the sofa before he’d even had time to think _,_ turning the television off at the wall so that things couldn’t progress any further.

“Fucking _Christ!”_

“I knew it! I knew it!” Anathema crowed, kicking her legs delightedly in the air and throwing some of his accent cushions at him. “Come on, it’s so _obvious—”_

“ _Yes!_ Fine! Yes! I obviously fancy him! I fancy him so much I don’t know what to fucking _do_ with myself, I’m having dreams about ducks and a lot of dreams about not-ducks but not far off in terms of spelling and I think somewhere along the line I’ve developed an actual, legitimate tap-dancing kink— which I googled, by the way, and there weren’t _any_ results so I think I’ve ascended to an entirely new plane of horny heretofore undiscovered! But I was _working on it!_ I had it under control! I was managing!”

Anathema’s laughter evened out into a smile that was, Crowley was horrified to see, verging on _kind._

“Crowley, what’s my job?”

“Well you seem determined to change it up whenever it suits you, so you’re gonna have to excuse me if I can’t remember all the particulars at this moment,” he hissed, throwing himself back onto the sofa.

“First and foremost, I’m your manager. It’s literally my job to _help_ you manage,” she passed him back his coffee cup, knowing he was done throwing himself about and could be trusted with its keep once more.

“Did you really know from day one?” Crowley asked, before he could decide if it was a good idea or not.

“To be honest, at first? I thought you knew too. When I realised you _didn’t,_ I thought you’d tell me when you were ready. I didn’t want to push.”

Crowley snorted, finally smiling up at her. “Who are you and what have you done with Anathema Device? Also, hang on— you call all this,” he gestured at the thankfully-black TV screen, _“_ _not_ pushing?!”

Anathema pursed her lips. “No, not really a push. This is more of a… gentle shove.”

“A light tap?”

“A little slap. Just a tiny one.”

Hiring her was the biggest mistake he’d ever made. He liked her _so much_. 

“Honestly, Anathema, you don’t need to worry about it. The shine’s already starting to come off.” It wasn’t. “I’ll probably be over it in a week.” He wouldn’t be. “I could easily list you all the things about him that are absolutely infuriating.” That one was true, but it didn’t mean Crowley was any more deterred and, horribly, Anathema definitely knew that.

“Alright.” She leant over and finally picked up Chekov’s sodding birthday present. “Then open this.”

Crowley had always loved getting gifts. No matter how superfluous or daft—an excellent example being the mug Anathema was currently drinking out of, which she’d gotten him for his 46th and had a massive picture of his face on it—he usually found some way to get a kick out of whatever the hell it was. It was a visible reminder, indisputable fucking proof that someone cared about you enough to do something like look through a list of all your terrible headshots, pick the worst one, and then spend £7.99 at Boots to get it printed onto a mug with text underneath that said _IMDB'S 987_ _TH_ _MOST POPULAR BRITISH ACTOR._ This package felt different though. Ominous. Foreboding. Possibly _cursed._

“If we want any chance of you getting through this undiscovered, with heart and dignity intact,” Anathema continued as he tore through the wrapping paper and the bomb inside the pie went off. Oh fuck. Oh _fuck._ Completely cursed. “Then we’re going to have to do some pretty strong immersion therapy, starting right now.”

 _“_ What a Glorious Feeling!” the _Singin’ In The Rain_ BluRay box informed him.

Crowley wasn’t convinced he agreed with the sentiment.

* * *

* * *

There was a new folder in Aziraphale’s email inbox. He had made it two weeks ago, a few scant hours before he’d gone onstage with Crowley. The folder was labelled “GABRIEL” and it was, by now, rather full. Aziraphale eyed it as he drank his morning tea. As if it felt his gaze upon it, he heard a _ping,_ and the number of unread emails in the folder went up by one. He sighed.

Perhaps it wasn’t the best move, professionally, to ignore missives from his boss. In fact, he was fairly sure it was frowned upon in most places of employment. Some time between the beginning of the season and now, and without his noticing, Aziraphale had entered into a Cold War with Upper Management— and things were becoming rather chilly. Movie Week had been the tipping point. Failing to notify Gabriel of a major change in their performance had been dramatic and daring and _incredibly stupid_ _,_ politically speaking. He doubted Gabriel had any real complaints about Crowley’s outfit choices—he was a bully, but not of that sort—and in any case Aziraphale’s conduct in the matter had been completely above board. Technically. He suppressed a small smile. No, Gabriel would be livid at being _left out of the loop,_ and Aziraphale suspected the emails were filled with all sorts of inane questions about routines, costumes, rehearsal spaces, interviews and public conduct in an effort to beat him into submission via micromanaging. 

The inbox pinged again. On a whim, he opened this one.

> _Aziraphale,_
> 
> _As per my last email, referencing_ _last_ _Tuesday’s email and the follow-up on_ **_this_ ** _Tuesday, I wanted to let you know that the updated contact sheet for press affiliates contained a typo, and the updated_ **_updated_ ** _contact sheet has been attached. If you could shoot me an email to show you received it, that would be great. Also, I need an accurate copy of your prop list, and would appreciate being CC’d in any further contact with the props department, lighting, SFX, catering…_

As he suspected. Meaningless demands to showcase Gabriel’s power and to demonstrate the repercussions should he be deliberately left out of future decision-making. It was retribution of the pettiest sort. Still, no-one was going to outbid Aziraphale in the pettiness sweepstakes. He deleted the email with an unnecessary flourish of his hand.

More would be forthcoming. Aziraphale fiddled with his teaspoon, bending the metal between his fingers. If they were going to continue to compete on their own terms, he and Crowley would have to be subtle. They would have to play a little cloak-and-dagger. He was still trying to find them an alternate rehearsal space so they could slip in some extra practise—which was absolutely _verboten_ , despite the fact that everyone did it—and if Gabriel got wind of _that_ _,_ then, well. He felt a thrill down his spine. If he was honest, it was more than a bit exciting, all this sneaking around. 

An astute observer would notice that when Aziraphale’s phone rang his head instinctively swivelled to check his surroundings, as if enemy agents could be crouching behind his ottoman.

“Hello?” he muttered into the phone, although he was quite certain he was alone.

“Hi, Aziraphale? I can barely hear you.”

“Yes, sorry, it’s me,” he said, at a more normal volume.

“Still on for today? 

“Yes, if you’re amenable.” Aziraphale peered around his living room curtains at the street below. Nothing suspicious, unless you counted the living statue, and he did. “And the, ah, rendezvous point?” 

“…I was just thinking the studio?”

Aziraphale did a double take, staring at the phone in his hand. “The studio? Are you— what if someone _sees_ us?”

A heavy sigh crackled through the speakers. “No-one will see us, and if they do see us, I _guarantee_ they won’t care.”

Aziraphale began to gather his things. Hat, coat, wallet, keys, clean handkerchief, handful of sweets, bits and various bobs, Oyster card, though god forbid he should need to use it. “Shouldn’t we have picked somewhere more discreet? The British Museum café, for instance?” he asked, locking his door behind him. 

“Aziraphale, I’m not going across town to sit in an overpriced thieves’ den.”

“No, quite right, quite right.” Aziraphale flagged down a cab, one eye on the living statue. Someone had tossed him a coin, and he was doing a terrible version of the robot. Aziraphale gave the driver the address, eyes still narrowed as they pulled away. He kept his voice low. “But the studio itself is out, dear. There are eyes _everywhere.”_

“Eyes. Okay. The roof?” 

“Too exposed.” Besides, he was fearful of getting stuck up there again. He hadn’t liked it last time. He’d felt like a kitten up a tree. “Perhaps the car park? There’s a private lot for staff use only, it’s covered. I have a space there I’ve never used.”

“Fine, sure, whatever. Text me if you have any problems.” 

Aziraphale took great care to not be seen on arrival. He had the cab drop him off at the opposite side of the studio building, and walked quickly, sticking to shadows and keeping the brim of his hat turned low to hide his distinctive hair. No-one seemed to spot him, or if they did, they said nothing— although he could concede that this probably less to do with stealth and more to do with him being in a building he worked at every day. There was one nerve-wracking moment where he saw Sandalphon huffing down a corridor towards him and was obliged to duck around a corner until he passed, back pressed against the wall and heart pounding. He could not decide whether creeping around his own workplace was degrading or thrilling. Perhaps they should have met at a public park, instead. Had their liaison by the ducks. 

Aziraphale slipped into the car park, and blinked in the sudden dim. His footsteps echoed in the empty space, and his shadow scouted ahead of him. He had picked, on reflection, a very ominous locale. He passed the automobiles of his co-workers—giving Gabriel’s Tesla a wide berth, in case he breathed too violently and scratched the paint—and made his way to his own humble parking space, tucked away at the very back of the lot, unused and empty for over a decade. 

Except it wasn’t empty. Someone had parked a large, red motorcycle in his personal space, and had knocked over the sign that said FELL in the process. He stared indignantly at the garishly-offensive thing, hands on hips. The bike was sleek and vicious-looking, like a temperamental horse. The person riding it, he felt, would have to have an awful lot of nerve to get on it at all, never mind stealing a parking space in which to house it. Aziraphale may not have used the space in all the years he’d had it, but it was still _his,_ and having someone nick it without so much of a by-your-leave irritated him immensely.

Caught up in his own self-righteousness, he failed to hear the footsteps behind him. 

“Hey, Aziraphale!”

He let out the most undignified little scream. It chased itself around the empty car park, followed by Anathema’s laughter. “You scared the daylights out of me,” he gasped. “Warn a fellow, would you?”

Anathema pursed her lips. “What is it with you two? So jumpy,” she muttered. “I’ve been calling you from across the parking lot, you were miles away.”

Aziraphale frowned. “Calling my name? Anathema, we’re supposed to be discreet.”

“Is that why you’re wearing a trenchcoat? And— wait, is that a fedora?”

“It is, yes, because I was committing to— I was trying to keep this on the _down-low_ _,”_ he said, lowering his voice. 

“The what? I can’t hear you.”

“The down-low,” he said, slightly louder. “On the sly. Under the radar. _Incognito.”_

She looked amused. “D’you wanna use code names, too?”

He seriously considered this for a few seconds before understanding that this was one of Anathema’s little jokes. He felt himself flush. “I suppose this _is_ very… Deep Throat,” he admitted. He shook off his fluster and made some attempt to recover his dignity. “If I may— what is _he_ doing here?”

Aziraphale pointed over Anathema’s shoulder, where Newt was hanging about like a damp towel, only twice as self-conscious. He held up one awkward arm in greeting. “Um, hello,” he said.

Anathema rolled her eyes. “He keeps following me.”

“I’m sorry, I really don’t mean to be creepy,” said Newt, reddening, “but you fit the description of someone I’ve been told to look out for, so I _have_ to follow you, kind of.”

Aziraphale began to see how enlisting Shadwell’s help may, perhaps, have had unintended consequences. He stifled a groan as Anathema gave him an accusatory look that said she knew exactly how this was Aziraphale’s fault and wasn’t impressed in the slightest.

“Sure. Hey, Newt? What exactly does your boss think I’ll do, by the way?”

“Well, he— he was a bit… vague. Something about toads?” 

“Mhmmmm,” she hummed thoughtfully, staring Aziraphale down. 

“Oh, and he also warned me that checking nipples was sexual harassment and that I shouldn’t do it. Not that I was intending to! But, um, that was protocol in the old Handbook, apparently.”

Anathema actually looked interested. “There’s a Handbook?” 

Newt reached into his jacket and pulled out a battered pamphlet, titled _Witchfinder’s Handbook, Revised Edition._ It was dogeared and boasted several stains of thankfully indeterminate origin.

“According to this I’m supposed to ask you to fill out a questionnaire instead.” He handed a sheet of paper to Anathema, who fished out her glasses and propped them on her nose.

“Question One: How many nipples do _yee_ got? a) one, b) the normal amount, or c) too many? Question Two: Are you now, or have you ever been, a servant of the Dark Lord Satan, pledged to do his foul deeds, to further his vile campaign against the just and righteous, and to bend your very soul to his heinous whims? Question Three: Is your broom license up to date? _Oh,_ I see, that’s smart, because—”

“Because then you’d have to admit to owning a broom, yeah.”

Anathema took off her glasses and let them drop on the chain around her neck. “And if it turns out I am a witch?”

“Well,” Newt looked sheepish. “Shadwell didn’t say, but I think then we still have to do the whole burning at the stake thing, I’m afraid.”

Anathema nodded, as if this was perfectly reasonable. “Huh. So I guess my safest option is to just refuse to fill out the questionnaire, hm?”

Newt shifted, momentarily stunned. “Er _—_ ”

“Not that I don’t enjoy learning more about my close personal friend’s _least_ appalling suitor, but can we get back to the matter at hand, please?” interrupted Aziraphale. “Anathema, you said you had something for me?”

“I do. I mean,” Anathema covered her hand with her mouth, lowering the pitch of her voice as far as it would go, _“I have the information you asked for.”_ Newt snorted. Anathema reached into the large messenger bag at her side. Since Aziraphale’s confession in the Bentley, she had been texting him at random with increasingly bizarre questions about his employment contract and twitter history. Aziraphale had no idea why she seemed so determined to get his account back—it was more trouble than it was worth, frankly—but she had a preoccupation with Essy-oh, whatever that was, and online engagement, and brand building, all of which she claimed would help them with the public vote. “Because,” she had said, “this positive tide of opinion may drop at any time, and if it does, we need to be able to build it back up artificially.” It all sounded very complex to Aziraphale, and he fancied there were several up-and-coming presidential hopefuls out there who would have just felt a sense of great loss, though they'd never know why.

From the messenger bag, Anathema pulled three things— a large leather planner, a pink crystal, and a thick sheaf of papers straining at the clip. This last item she held straight out to Aziraphale.

“This is all raw data that I have collected in the past two weeks, aggregated and put into charts, graphs and timelines so even an idiot could follow it,” she said. “It’s gonna solve all your problems. Well,” she gave Aziraphale a very shrewd look, “a few of your problems, anyway.”

Aziraphale flicked through the documents. Even with a cursory glance he could understand the gist of what it was telling him, and he felt a smile break on his face. Next time Gabriel tried to collar him, he would be ready. “Oh, my dear girl, this is…” he shook his head. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” she said. “It’s my job. At least now we can move into the next phase.” She opened the leather planner, pulled a pen from behind her ear, and began to make a few notes on a page densely covered in charts and writing. Newt tried to peer over her shoulder, and was flicked in the forehead for his trouble. 

“Hey, what’s the deal with Adam and Eve, anyway?” she asked, casually. 

Aziraphale frowned. The dark car park, the trenchcoat, the Machiavellian manager— working against Management was one thing, but this was turning into a picture he didn’t want to be a part of. “Anathema,” he said uncertainly, “I do hope you’re not intending to run some sort of smear campaign—"

“What? Oh, no, I’m not stupid. Negative energy rebounds on you threefold. No, I’m just a huge gossip.” Her eyes twinkled. “I saw them in the rain when I was looking for you guys. They looked _cozy_.”

“Well, I can assure you it was nothing illicit,” Aziraphale said, hurriedly. Adam had been kind to him over the years where others most decidedly had not, and he knew how these narratives could play out. “Adam did have a partner—a romantic partner, I mean, not a dance partner—but apparently he has left Lilith in order to be with Eve. They are clearly taken with each other.”

“So that’s, um, okay, yeah?” Anathema asked, still scribbling. “Professionals and contestants getting… _involved?”_

Aziraphale laughed. “Oh, it happens every year, for better or worse.” He had genuinely lost count of the dalliances that had taken place since the show’s inception. “It seems the Strictly Curse has claimed another victim.”

Anathema and Newt froze.

“Curse?” asked Newt. He fished a notebook out of his pocket. “What do you mean, curse?”

The two of them stared at Aziraphale expectantly, notebooks raised. 

The Strictly Curse, as it was called, wasn’t really a curse at all, but a name for a completely natural phenomenon that occurred when one put a cohort of mostly young, mostly attractive people together and asked them to rehearse intimate, erotically charged dance numbers under pressure. Shockingly, some people fancied their partner. Some people even— _gasp—_ acted on it. Some of _those_ people were already in relationships, and then it all got very messy and unpleasant, and that was where the _Curse_ part of the Strictly Curse came in. Every year someone, somewhere, lost their beau to dance-related tension. Then the tabloids had a field day. 

Aziraphale was glad that Adam had had the sense and moral fibre to end his relationship with Lilith before taking up with Eve. He was, in a strange sort of way, proud of him. And really, he and Eve were _much_ better suited.

Aziraphale endeavoured to explain this to Newt and Anathema as they scribbled furious notes, brows in identical furrows of concentration. They had rather a lot in common, he observed. 

“Okay, well, that’s good to know as we move into Phase Three,” said Anathema, circling something on the page with unnecessary force.

“Phase Three?” asked Aziraphale. “What’s Phase Three?”

She gave him an indulgent look. “Nothing you need to be concerned about. I, like the universe, have my own plan.” She flashed the page she was writing on at Aziraphale. He could make neither head nor tail of it.

“That looks... rather more comprehensive than ours,” said Aziraphale, weakly.

“Yes, I saw you and Crowley’s napkin. I thought it was cute.”

Cute. Yes, he supposed four steps was a little simplistic, now he thought about it. 

“Oh, and there’s this, too.” Anathema handed him the crystal. It was several inches long, polished, and shaped like an obelisk. “It’s a rose quartz tower. Your aura is clearing up a bit, but you’ve still got a way to go.” She eyed him critically. He wasn’t sure what he was being criticised for, but he felt chastised all the same. 

“Ah, thank you, dear. I assume that this will help me concentrate, or… or provide good energy, or similar?” 

She hesitated. “Something like that. Just do me a solid and put it in your rehearsal studio or somewhere, okay?”

Aziraphale put the quartz wand in his pocket, failing to notice the amused twitch of her lips. 

Newt was also eyeing the crystal curiously. “Is that witch stuff?” he asked, obviously desperate to have gleaned _something_ he could report back to the Sergeant.

“Could be. Okay, gentlemen, I’m off. Aziraphale, it is, actually, a pleasure.” Her brown eyes held more warmth for him than Aziraphale had seen thus far. “You know? I’m glad it was you.”

Aziraphale wasn’t sure what that meant, but he was touched all the same.

“As for _you,_ Pulsifer,” she wheeled around, “follow me again and I’ll be getting me some eye of Newt, m’kay?” she gave Newt a smile Crowley would be proud of, turned on one sensible heel, and left. 

“Wow,” said Newt, as she stalked away. “She’s…wow.” Aziraphale could see the little hearts in his eyes, and knew the boy was a hopeless case.

“Oh, good lord,” he muttered.

* * *

Something was up with Aziraphale. He texted Crowley a barrage of messages that morning at the crack of fucking dawn to ask when, exactly, he would be arriving at the rehearsal studio, and not to press but would it be soon, oh and also could he pick up a pastry on his way in? _Anything at all would do, just forgot to grab breakfast this morning, all in a tizzy, terribly kind, thank you so much,_ et cetera et cetera _._ Like Crowley was his own personal errand boy.

A small selection of pastries in hand, as well as the usual tea and coffee, Crowley pushed his way into the studio to find it empty. 

“Aziraphale?” he called out, cautiously. His brain immediately started kicking off that this was _not_ normal and something had happened— maybe it was another Michael-based ambush, or maybe Aziraphale had cottoned on to him, seeing as Crowley’s feelings were so _obvious_ to everyone and their bloody mum, and he was about to be asked in no uncertain terms to leave at once and never again darken the doorway of the Beeb. Crowley had just started getting worked up into genuine _tizzy_ himself when—

“Coo-ee, Mister C!” 

Tracy was waving at him from the door at the far end of the studio, gesturing for him to follow her.

“Come on, love, you’ve been moved to Costume this morning. Mister Aziraphale has a few things he wants sorting sooner rather than later.”

“He sends me fifty bloody texts and that information couldn’t have been in one of them?” Crowley grumbled, but followed her all the same. They moved through the corridors, avoiding the gang of runners who always seemed to be underfoot no matter what time of day it was. The girl of the group had come up to him shortly after Week Three and silently handed him a sticker of a sunglasses-wearing snake that was loudly proclaiming GENDER IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT. He was weirdly touched by this action and showed it in the usual manner, by telling her to piss off. She seemed to understand all the same. As they ran past him Crowley could have sworn he saw a _dog_ in their midst. He chose to forget that. He had better things to do than go chasing after kids who sneak dogs into television studios and besides, he was no grass.

“So, what’s so important it couldn’t wait until a more decent time of the morning? Rip in the spandex? Aziraphale wants to implement a new colour scheme? Clear-out in the period drama warehouse?”

“Actually, I think he just wanted his breakfast,” Tracy said, tapping the bag of pastries.

Crowley was about to let her know exactly what he thought about that, but she pushed open the door of Costume and all words left him. There, facing away from them on the central plinth, was Aziraphale.

He was wearing _jeans_.

“You’re wearing jeans,” was the first thing that came out of Crowley’s very intelligent mouth.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale spun to face him, which was a shame really, because denim did a _lot_ for certain parts of his figure and Crowley felt he hadn’t had ample time to appreciate it. The delighted tone in his voice almost made up for it though. Almost. “Good morning, my dear. A _very_ astute observation— is that your second coffee of the morning, by any chance?”

Crowley bravely moved towards him, putting their breakfast down on one of the worktables and ignoring the dig about his caffeine dependency. “I thought you said we couldn’t dance in jeans. I remember, very clearly, you saying we can’t dance in jeans.” He was especially concerned about dancing in jeans for the _jive_ of all things. Hell of a lot of kicking about; Tracy’s warning words about _denim burn_ echoed through his mind and he winced involuntarily.

“Well, we can’t, but we must inhabit the spirit of the song and the video! We want this to be an accurate tribute, don’t we?” He wiggled. Crowley wondered whether or not he could petition the government to make doing that illegal. “These, however, are _not_ jeans— Tracy has very cleverly managed to meld the best of both worlds, fashion _and_ function! These are actually a very flexible, soft material made to look like jeans—”

“Ah, right, so we’re dancing in _jeggings_ _._ Yes, that’s much better, very cool, excited to get out there on Saturday and give everyone’s gran a good eyeful wrapped in Primark’s best,” Crowley said.

“Everyone’s gran would be so lucky!” Tracy scoffed at him. “But no, I’m far too good at my job for that, Mister C. I mean, you thought these were real, didn’t you? Does this look like _Primark’s best_ to you?” She slapped Aziraphale’s denim-clad thigh in a way that made such a monumental action look easy and casual.

“Guh,” Crowley said. “Er, yup. Yeah. Very real. Okay, fine, jeggings it is. When do I have the pleasure of being fitted?”

Aziraphale grinned, hopping down off the plinth and coming to meet him. He reached out to take off Crowley’s sunglasses, but Crowley managed to get in there first, tossing them to one side before Aziraphale could think about touching them or him. Aziraphale _tsked_ _,_ but kept grinning all the same. 

“It will be your turn in a moment, but first, if you would close your eyes?”

“Close my— why would I do that?”

“Crowley, please. I’ve got something for you, and it’s not wrapped, so I’d like to retain _some_ element of mystique and surprise.”

Crowley wasn’t sure he could take many more surprises. He was starting to feel incredibly lightheaded, a sensation that was becoming more and more familiar as he fell further into this ridiculous teenage infatuation. But Aziraphale had _asked,_ and so he could do nothing but answer. He closed his eyes, swallowing and swaying on his feet a little.

“Alright, now hold out your hands.”

He did, and felt something very slight land on top of his open palms. His thumbs curled around to hold whatever it was in place.

“That doesn’t feel like a pair of jeggings.”

“Go on, take a look!”

Crowley did, and immediately wished he hadn’t. That lightheaded feeling was only getting stronger, and the bottom of his stomach felt like it had dropped out. He was holding a dog-eared photograph of Aziraphale, probably no older than twenty, twenty-three at a push. His hair was longer, distinctly curly, and completely wild. His lips almost looked rouged and were arranged into a very coy smile— Crowley had been treated to that smile a few times by now, and he found himself a little disappointed to see it captured here with none of the laugh lines or crinkles at the corner of his eyes that accompanied it in the present day, marks that showed just how much _life_ Aziraphale had lived. Crowley studied all of these things intently for a few more moments, because it meant he could put off looking at the main focal point of the photo. Glinting, hanging from this young Aziraphale’s left ear, was an unmissable, gaudy, golden hoop.

“You, uh,” he blew out a long stream of breath, willing his vision to stop swimming, “you were _not_ kidding about the George Michael thing, eh? I—”

What was sure to be a devastating zinger and not an ill-timed declaration of affection died halfway out of his mouth as Crowley glanced back up. Here, in the present day—hair slightly more tamed, lips slightly less rouged but no less coy, perfect bastard laugh lines out in full force—was the Aziraphale that Crowley had gone arse over tit for. 

And glinting, hanging from his left ear, was an unmissable, gaudy, golden hoop.

“Surprise!” Aziraphale laughed, clapping his hands in glee. “I was _desperate_ to show you this when I first told you we’d be jiving to _Faith_ but I couldn’t find the blasted thing.” He lifted his hand to the earring, twiddling it so it caught the light from the chandelier overhead. “I knew I still had the exact ones, though, so after your little comment during our interview I thought it might tickle you to see this old fool still toting around the trinkets of his youth. Oh, and look, _what’s this?_ Could it be?”

Aziraphale reached towards Crowley’s head, and Crowley was still feeling rather too _tickled_ to react. Aziraphale’s hand disappeared out of his line of sight, then came back clasping another golden hoop—the _matching_ hoop—as Aziraphale widened his eyes and made his mouth into a perfect little ‘o’ of faux shock. 

“Did you just… pretend to do close up magic to get that out from behind my ear?” Crowley asked, trying to sound as appalled as he felt inside. This. This was the person he’d decided to have feelings for. An _amateur magician._

Aziraphale pouted. 

“No, I didn’t pretend, I _performed_ _,”_ he said, and dropped the loose earring atop the photograph where it still sat in Crowley’s hand. “I just thought it would be a bit of fun, for us both to wear one earring from a set for the routine.”

Crowley took a few moments to breathe and settle the outburst that threatened to have him pulling his hair out any second now.

“Aziraphale, I can’t wear this.”

“Well, I’m aware it may not necessarily be deemed _cool_ in the eyes of Anthony J Crowley, but you did say Tracy and I could be in charge of costuming for the most part, and I—”

“No, you great idiot, stop getting upset and listen to me. I _can’t wear this,_ _”_ he held up the earring, pressing his finger into the pin. “I don’t have pierced ears.”

Aziraphale blinked, mouth still open around the rest of his protestations. He slowly closed it, eyes narrowing.

“May I?”

Aziraphale must have taken the small sound Crowley involuntarily made as a green light, because the next thing he knew Aziraphale’s fingers were lightly pressed to his neck to hold Crowley in place as the very soft pad of Aziraphale’s thumb gently brushed the lobe of Crowley’s ear. Aziraphale stroked back and forth across the small patch of skin once, twice, before releasing him. 

“Well, that is a shame,” Aziraphale smiled, and it almost looked a little sad. For a completely wild moment Crowley considered offering to go get his ear pierced at the grand old age of 48, for this one dance routine, just in case it would please Aziraphale. _Get it together,_ the one remaining sensible part of himself hissed, which was a hard demand to fulfil considering his head was still pounding and he could still feel the phantom brush of Aziraphale on skin that was so rarely touched. “I honestly would’ve thought you of all people would have, but I suppose this is one instance where I’ve been more of a rebel than you, hmm?”

“Not to worry, love. Got some industrial-strength clip ons you can use,” Tracy piped up, smiling at the two of them. “They’ve been _rigorously_ stress-tested by yours truly, so I can guarantee, no matter how exciting things get out there, you won’t have one flying off and taking someone’s eye out.”

Aziraphale chuckled, before taking back the photograph and earring from where Crowley was barely managing to hold onto them, let alone himself. He ushered Crowley up to the plinth.

“Right, enough lolly-gagging about. We’ve got a jacket to fit you in with your name on it. Well, actually, it doesn’t have your name on it, it says _Revenge_ on the back but—”

Crowley interrupted Aziraphale. He hadn’t actually meant to interrupt him for once, but something about this entire situation must have gotten to him, because one moment he was taking a small step upwards to the top of the plinth and the next he was suddenly in a heap against Aziraphale’s chest. His head would _not_ stop pounding, and he couldn’t quite make out what it was that Tracy was saying, which was concerning considering she was right up in his face. When had she gotten there? Did she teleport? She’d been over by the costume racks only a second ago.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale’s voice huffed in his ear, which was still recovering from all the touching that had been going on earlier, and he was maneuvered to sit on the edge of the plinth. “Up you pop, there’s a boy. Now it’s your turn to listen to me and not get upset. I have tried to be delicate about this—particularly with an issue that can be so sensitive—but I really have to ask a little more directly, all things considered. Have you been eating properly?”

The question broke Crowley out of his weird fugue state. He was an actual, proper fool. All this time he thought he’d just been swooning about like some tittering, lovesick idiot. To be fair to Crowley, he’d never had to deal with a debilitating crush _and_ an extreme amount of strenuous physical activity all at the same time before. Or, at least, not outside of a bedroom.

“Er, define _properly?”_ Crowley asked, weakly, gratefully taking the glass of water Tracy appeared with and downing several large gulps at once.

Aziraphale looked incensed. It was doing nothing to tamp down Crowley’s libido, or settle his head.

“Right. That’s _it_ , I’m not putting up with this for one minute longer. Tracy, dear girl, we are going to have to reschedule this fitting for tomorrow. I hope that’s alright with you.”

Tracy smiled at Aziraphale’s back as he stomped off behind one of the room dividers she set up for joint fittings. 

“Course, pet. I could make these costumes in my sleep and they’d still fit perfect, but we’ll pick up where we left off tomorrow,” she said, then leaned down with her hands on her knees to look Crowley dead in the eye. “You let Mister Aziraphale take care of you, alright? I don’t want any fuss, don’t want you being difficult about it.” She picked up the spare hoop, turning it over in her hands. “Besides, this gives me time to get this converted into a clip-on. Wouldn’t want to miss an opportunity to see you both in matching jewellery.”

Aziraphale emerged once more, back in his usual togs, before Crowley had a chance to fully ask Tracy what in the nine circles of hell she was on about. He tugged down his waistcoat on the approach and gave Tracy a small peck on the cheek.

“Sorry to dash in and out like this, but you see what I’ve got to work with here.” They both gave Crowley the same bloody look, like he was a child on the naughty step. “Come along then, Crowley. We’re losing daylight and I want to be back in time to perfect our six-step count without the music so that tomorrow we can begin anew with soundtrack in place.”

Crowley obediently sloped back up, but tried to look as unwilling as he possibly could about it. He reached for the bag of pastries to take with them, but Aziraphale swatted his hand away. 

“No need for those.”

“Why?” Crowley asked, narrowing his eyes. “Where are we going? Did I seriously buy enough pasties to run off and start my own bootleg bakery for no reason at all?”

“That request was made before I knew for certain you weren’t keeping on top of your own upkeep. I would be having words with Anathema about all this, but she’s had an awful lot on her plate recently— unlike _you_ , clearly. So no, my dear boy. Today we are not going to merely subsist on soggy pastries from the abysmal cart outside. We are going somewhere they serve a _proper_ breakfast.”

***

Because of everything he’d come to know about Aziraphale, Crowley had assumed that they would be having breakfast somewhere around their home turf— entirely central, overpriced and with a queue out the door a mile long. So when they ended up in a mostly-empty greasy spoon just on the cusp between Tufnell Park and Kentish Town, with the kind of tables that are melded to the chairs all as one unit just in case anyone gets the urge to stand up and chuck one, he found himself surprised for the umpteenth time that morning. What _wasn’t_ a surprise, though, was when Aziraphale ordered for both of them without even checking in with Crowley.

“Oh, what, can’t be trusted to sort my own food now?” He asked, trying to arrange himself in his customary slouch and finding it nigh on impossible. These chairs had _seen things,_ and were made of such stuff that they couldn’t be bullied into submission, least of all by the likes of Crowley. He found himself having to lean forward with his elbows on the table. 

_Take that, correct posture and social etiquette,_ he thought.

“No, apparently you can’t.” Aziraphale gave an unimpressed look to his elbows, clearly wanting to say _very badly_ some things on the topic of social etiquette, but didn’t take the bait. “Crowley, it is vitally important that you keep yourself properly fuelled for the duration of the competition. Especially now that you’re actually—“

“Not fucking up entirely?”

“I was going to say progressing,” Aziraphale’s expression turned exasperated and Crowley thought, _yep, still got it._ “You can’t just be chugging down several gallons of coffee a day and calling it enough.”

“Oh, come on, I don’t do that,” Crowley said. “I also drink wine and, on occasion, whisky.”

“Only on occasion?”

“On the occasion I find myself locked on a rooftop with someone, yeah.”

They grinned at each other for a few moments before Aziraphale seemed to remember he was meant to be telling Crowley off and tried to school his face back into something resembling stern.

“Really though, I have to press my point, Crowley. I insist we work regular meals together into our training regimen, for your own sake— you _must_ make sure you’re getting proper sustenance. I won’t have you putting yourself at risk.”

“Alright, _alright_ angel, stop fussing.” Crowley had realised by now the _angel_ thing was going to keep happening and he was powerless to stop it. Aziraphale didn’t seem to mind, though, so that was alright. The server who had just appeared with their breakfasts, however, might need help rescuing her heavily pencilled eyebrows from where they’d become trapped in her hairline.

“Um. One Full English, extra fried bread, poached egg, no black pudding?”

Aziraphale gave her one of his most devastating little grins, holding up a hand like a child waiting to be called on in a classroom. “That’s me! Perfect, thank you my dear.”

She turned to Crowley. “And that would make you the Full English, eggs three ways, no fried bread, no beans, no black pud?”

Crowley looked up at her coolly. “I suppose it would, yes.”

She waited a few moments more and he finally slid his elbows off the table with a petulant sigh so she had room to put the plate down. “I’ll bring you another coffee, shall I? Anything else for you, darling?”

“A pot of hot water would be lovely, thank you.”

She bustled away and Aziraphale began tucking in as though he, and not Crowley, were the one on the supposed-brink of starvation. The thing was, Crowley mused, poking at the first of his eggs three ways—who wants to eat _three kinds of egg_ all at once, why was this even a thing anywhere offered—the thing was that people mischaracterised him. Took one look at a tall, skinny, queer bloke in all black who was prone to wearing sunglasses indoors while swanning around film sets, and thought things about liquid diets and, possibly, appetite suppressants. While Crowley didn’t necessarily do anything to disabuse people of this notion—he’d invested a lot of time and effort into _giving_ people this notion—it wasn’t actually true. Crowley liked eating. In some circumstances, Crowley _loved_ eating. He just had very, very particular tastes and it wasn’t always easy for those tastes to be satisfied, so most of the time he didn’t bother eating more than he needed to get by. One of the things he actually loved eating, though, had been omitted from his breakfast without his say-so.

“Can’t really call it a Full English without the black pudding,” he grumbled, but took a bite of eggs nonetheless. Aziraphale stopped carrying on like Meg Ryan for a moment long enough to dab at his mouth with his napkin and lean conspiratorially over the table.

“Between you and I, my dear, I agree wholeheartedly, but—“ he glanced around, like he was about to impart state secrets to Crowley and not his opinion on breakfast foods, “—I never risk ordering it when in the South. I have no idea why _every_ chef below Manchester thinks black pudding is meant to be a soggy mess but, unfortunately, it’s a complete disappointment every time. I’m saving us both the heartache.”

He exaggeratedly tapped the side of his nose at Crowley, who thought it was funny that Aziraphale could be both saving him from heartache and making his chest do _that_ all at the same time.

“Coffee for you, love, and a pot of hot water.” Their server reappeared, making Aziraphale lean back in his chair. Another strike against her, in Crowley’s book. She also didn’t appear to be in a hurry to leave.

“Was there something else you needed?” Crowley asked, as though he was the one waiting on her.

“Actually… look, I never do this when we get celebrities in here but,” she smiled sheepishly. “I, er, know who you two are. Been glued to this season since Launch Week, my whole family has.”

Aziraphale and Crowley glanced quickly at each other, and Crowley desperately tried to cast his mind back to how you were meant to deal with being recognised in public for a reason that wasn’t the barman yelling _I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU NOT TO COME BACK HERE, MATE._

“Oh, how wonderful!” Aziraphale was the first to remember how to make his face do normal, human things. He’d put on his best very kind smile, the one that made his eyes crinkle at the corners. “I suppose it would be a little presumptuous of me to ask who you’re rooting for, hm?”

“Adam and Eve,” she admitted, and Crowley found himself instantly warming to her. “Well, me and my daughter are anyway. My son Matthew loves the two of you, though. Especially you, Mr Crowley.”

Crowley not only looked taken aback, he felt it. “Me?”

“Yeah, completely mad for you. He’s started wanting to watch all my old DVDs of your films, some of which he’s a bit young for— only nine, bless him,” this was said to Aziraphale, who tilted his head and gave a little _oh the sweet darling_ sort of look. “Determined to grow his hair out, go as Mary Poppins for Halloween this year.”

“Gosh,” Crowley said, and found that he truly meant it.

“Before this it was Kate Bush. Used to run about the house at all hours, warbling that we should let him in at our windows, nicked all my best silk scarves, Heathcliffe this, Cathy that. Breath of fresh air, the two of you are. Look, I know you’re in the middle of your brekkie, and like I said I never do this, but would you mind?”

She held up her phone. They both agreed and arranged themselves so that their half-eaten food wouldn’t be present in the picture, because Aziraphale deemed it _gauche._ Their server—whose name tag told them she was called DEBORAH—took a couple of the two of them together, and then Crowley demanded a selfie with all three of them in, because he was personally quite fond of the despicable medium and liked having some control over photos of himself. He stood in the middle, holding the phone out as the one with the longest arms, and they all pressed in together. It was a position with the distinct advantage of making Aziraphale’s cheek end up smooshed right against his. Well, nobody said Crowley had to be _entirely_ selfless about this whole thing.

“I can’t thank the two of you enough, Matthew’ll just die when he sees this,” Deborah cooed, looking down at the photos. “Can I post the one of you at the table on the shop account? Be great for business.”

“Yeah, sure,” Crowley waved a hand, looking down at his eggs three ways which he was positive would now be eggs one way, and that one way was _cold._ “Oh, will you tag me in it? Sounds entirely wanky to say, sorry, but blame my manager. Her new thing is _media engagement.”_ He grimaced apologetically, and Deborah gave him a sympathetic nod, as if she understood just how grim a concept this was. “Also, could you heat this up for me?”

“Of course! She the one who does your tweets? She’s very funny.”

“That’s one word for it,” Crowley said, before handing over his plate.

“And you, Mr Fell?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t got anything for you to do any _tagging_ with at present moment, but I’m working on that, so perhaps in future, my dear!” Aziraphale said.

“Oh, I know that, love— my daughter tells me the _Strictly_ scandals, goss, all the ins-and-outs. I meant your breakfast. Want me to pop it in the microwave for a mo?”

Aziraphale flushed and offered his plate up to her. Crowley felt he was very gracious and _very_ controlled in not outright laughing at him, but Aziraphale had clearly gotten better at reading him because the next thing he knew he found himself hit bang between the eyes with a scrunched up napkin. _So much for social etiquette_ , Crowley thought, elated at this petty victory.

“What do you mean, you’re working on it?” he asked.

Aziraphale mimed zipping his lips, and then ruined the illusion utterly by taking a huge bite of toast. Crowley felt helplessly fond. If this was what breakfast with Aziraphale was like, he supposed he could suffer it a little more often. For the sake of the show, of course.

* * *

* * *

Finally, two and a half weeks after Gabriel’s first snippy email, Aziraphale sent one back.

> _Dear Gabriel,_
> 
> _I apologise wholeheartedly for my lack of contact! The show has kept me on my toes both literally and figuratively, and I haven’t had two minutes to rub together in weeks. I should like to rectify this—perhaps it would be easier for both of us if we convened an in-person meeting sometime over the next few days? At your convenience, of course._
> 
> _Regards,  
> _ _Aziraphale._

Not three minutes later, he received a response.

> _Aziraphale,_
> 
> _Good to hear from you, we were beginning to think you were dead! My earliest convenience is right now, actually. Meet you in Conference Room 3 in the next 5 minutes?_
> 
> _Gabriel_

If Aziraphale were in his studio, it would have taken him at least ten minutes to walk at a brisk pace from his side of the building to the more corporate side, take the lift, edge around the open-plan desk area whilst trying not to disturb the poor souls inside, and then take _another_ lift up to the multi-purpose meeting spaces that were just one floor down from Gabriel’s office and one floor up from Legal. Fortunately, Aziraphale was not in his studio.

When Gabriel, Michael and Uriel turned up to Conference Room 3, Aziraphale was just mopping up the last crumbs of his pastry; he was sitting in the same seat he had occupied for the past fifteen minutes, and from which he had sent his first email.

“Ah! Gabriel, Michael. And Uriel, too! A pleasant surprise,” he said, jovially, rising to his feet as they entered the room. He took a modicum of satisfaction from the way Gabriel started to see him there, and a little more from the sour expression on Michael’s face. He hadn’t expected them to bother Uriel, but this would save time down the road, should his plan come to fruition. “Good of you to come so promptly! Please, sit down.”

They sat, though they looked conflicted about it. The conference table was long and rectangular, and as Aziraphale had arrived first, he had chosen the side facing the glass door. For the other three attendees, it had the unfortunate effect of making them feel like they were on the wrong side of an employer’s desk. That book on body language in corporate settings hadn’t been useless, after all.

“I wanted to apologise again for being out of contact for so long,” Aziraphale began, spreading his hands in what Gabriel would term a _‘my bad’_ gesture. “Rehearsals have taken up an awful lot of my time, you see.”

Gabriel found his voice, clearing his throat assertively. Another trick the book recommended. Perhaps he had also read it. “Yeah, about that. I get that your partner has needed a lot of work, really I do, but two weeks of no contact?” he raised his hands in turn; Aziraphale was familiar with this as a _‘you see my problem’_ gesture. “It’s kinda not acceptable, buddy.”

“I know.” Aziraphale was endlessly fascinated with Gabriel’s face, the way he formed his expressions as though he had learned how to do so from television.

“And then there’s the other elephant in the room. Not telling us about you and Crowley’s wardrobe switcheroo until an hour before broadcast— well, that was a little rude, Aziraphale. Obviously we’re all totally on board with the concept, did _great_ things for our numbers, but a real heads up would have been appreciated. It made me, personally, feel like you didn’t trust us.”

“Yes, I can understand how it might have felt that way. We were very busy that week, and that was something that just slipped through the cracks.” That was a lie, and everyone in the room knew it. Michael stifled a snort. Gabriel sighed.

“I mean I don’t wanna get on your case, I know how hard you’ve had to work, and it’s great to see you putting in this much effort, but… you really don’t need to. No-one’s expecting you guys to actually win. No-one here,” he gestured at Michael and Uriel, “is going to think less of you when you drop out.”

Aziraphale had expected this, but the comment rankled all the same. They had no knowledge of dance between them. In fact, were he a betting man, he would lay money on Gabriel being the kind of person who went to extravagantly-priced music festivals, stood against the fencing of the VIP area, and nodded his head ever so slightly while checking his phone. What they didn’t know— _couldn’t_ know, because they couldn’t see it the way the judges and Aziraphale could—was how vastly Crowley had improved in the scant time Aziraphale had been working with him. It was truly remarkable. Aziraphale had been paired with natural dancers before, and while it had been easier and in some ways more pleasant, it had always felt a little like he was just going through the motions. Working with Crowley wasn’t like that. It was difficult, and it was frustrating, and it was quite possibly the most rewarding experience he had had on the show to date. Even _if_ Crowley was reluctant and snappish and insisted on treating his body like a car with two miles of petrol left in the tank.

He did not say any of this aloud, however. 

“I appreciate your, ah, support, and candour,” he said instead. “I will endeavour to answer all _communiques_ promptly in the future, and in that spirit,” he took a bundle of papers out of the bag at his side, and slid them over to Gabriel. “Here are the set requirements you asked for, as well as information on costume, lighting, music choices, budgeting, et cetera. This information is all already available to you from the relevant departments, of course,” which was why there was no need to request it from Aziraphale _in the first place_ , “but I thought you might find it useful to have it all in one go.”

He slid the large sheaf of documents over to Gabriel. He’d made the font two sizes larger than was generally acceptable, just to give them more heft. Wasting paper was, he felt, a minor sin in this particular case.

“Uh. Thank you,” said Gabriel, looking at the stack in front of him. Uriel and Michael shot each other glances. Aziraphale wondered if he’d even bother to flick through it before shredding. “But actually, what we wanted to talk to you about today is—”

“I really am sorry to interrupt,” Aziraphale happily interrupted, “but there’s actually more here that I wanted to share, if I may?” he pulled out another three stacks of paper, each secured by the maw of a bulldog clip, and handed one to Michael, Gabriel and Uriel. They stared. A muscle tightened in Gabriel’s chiselled, all-American jaw.

The files—photocopies of the information Anathema had given him at their little _rendezvous_ —were all labelled _“An Impact Analysis of Team Delightful: A Breakdown of Engagement Across Social Media and Its Correlation to Viewership”._

“Now, Crowley’s publicist is an extraordinary person who is very _very_ good at her job, and she has put together this little info pack for us,” he began. “I have been working with her over the past few weeks to determine our standing amongst the general public, and I have some excellent news. If you’ll all turn to page one of the report?”

Stunned, they did. Aziraphale explained the information in front of them to the best of his ability. He was relying on the copious notes Anathema had prepared for him, and giving it as much _oomf_ as the thespian in him could muster. Were they actually to press him on any of the details beyond what lay on the page he’d be scuppered, but he called upon the spirit of Crowley to carry him through it with a gung-ho _‘fake it until one makes it’_ approach. There was no real need to worry, though. The documents were as comprehensive as they were numerous. Anathema had done her homework. She had monitored the #DelightfulPartners hashtag and its variants, #TeamDelightful and #AziCrow (he was not keen on that last one, personally) across Twitter and Instagram. She had name-searched each of them, specifically. She had set up something called a Google Alert that collected instances of when their names and _Strictly Come Dancing_ appeared together in an article. Aziraphale could not have been more impressed if she had hacked into MI6. She had found that of all the couples, Aziraphale and Crowley had received the most mentions, with Adam and Eve coming in second. They had accrued a somewhat devoted fanbase, and in the wake of the Poppins Gambit there had been a flood of articles about gender expression and reality television, which had been liked and shared and retweeted.

Anathema had then gone further; she had set up some sort of online survey involving a monkey (Aziraphale was unclear on this part) to find who was watching the show, their age demographic and, crucially, whether they had watched _Strictly_ before. What she had found was that 85% of responders who had never watched the show before cited Aziraphale and Crowley as their primary reasons for doing so, and 60% of _those_ were under thirty-five. This was also borne out in the twitter data. Just to drive the point home—and Aziraphale had teared up, a little, at this—she had included a page of testimonials, screen-shoots of tweets from people saying how much they loved the show, how heartened they were to see Aziraphale and Crowley, how they were the reason they were watching. Aziraphale had remembered Deborah’s son Matthew, the Kate Bush and Anthony Crowley fan, and had to have a little sit down to compose himself.

“As you can see,” Aziraphale finished, “and as is set out in the conclusion on page fifty-eight, Crowley and I have brought in a number of new viewers, and have significantly upped the public’s online engagement with the show. There is even an online petition from some fans to show this season on BBC America, even though they would not be eligible to vote! I found that very touching.” He smiled. He made a valiant effort to keep the smirk out of it. “Now, I know what you’re thinking. This is third-party research from Anthony Crowley’s publicist, how do we possibly check it?” He widened his eyes. “Well, it _turns out_ there is also a department within the BBC that monitors this sort of thing, though I had absolutely no idea— I am something of a Luddite, you see!” He laughed to himself. “Apparently they can confirm Miss Device’s findings. It’s all so very _exciting,_ wouldn’t you agree?”

Gabriel ran his thumb along the stack of documents. It made the satisfying sound of validation. He frowned for a moment, and Aziraphale began to worry that all of dear Anathema’s hard work had been for naught. Then, abruptly, Gabriel grinned.

“You know what, this _is_ exciting,” he said. “I gotta hand it to you, Az, I didn’t expect you to play ball, after so many years—but it looks like you and Tony have really hit a home run with this one.”

“Thank you. We intend to maintain this level of engagement as much as possible, if not increase it.” Aziraphale’s copy of the data had a little cheat sheet at the end, instructing Aziraphale on the specific language to use at this delicate moment. “For the show.”

“Sure, sure, why not! Why not,” Gabriel grinned. “You two are willing to push the envelope and whaddaya know, it’s paying off.”

 _Easy does it,_ thought Aziraphale. He took a deep, if surreptitious, breath. “We think we should really look at how we can build on this. We have a few tricks—a few _ideas_ up our proverbial sleeves, as it were—”

“And I’d love to hear them!”

“—but we think step one is to reactivate my twitter account,” said Aziraphale. “Crowley has his, of course. As do the rest of the professionals. With this influx of new viewers, Crowley’s account is getting requests every day for me to join. On Instagram, as well.”

Gabriel’s smile faded a little. “Well, Az, you know why you don’t have one anymore—”

“I’m aware, yes, and I agree that it was the best decision _at the time,”_ a flash of the old shame, there, “but circumstances have changed, somewhat,” Aziraphale kept his expression mild, and an held out an open palm to signal compliance and also that he was _handing_ the decision over to Gabriel. This body language lark was exhausting. Normally, he wouldn’t give a fig about twitter or tumbles or whatever void everyone was shouting into nowadays. But he had learned several things from Anathema, things that he had been too out of touch for too long to know; things like _a large part of networking is done online rather than at champagne socials nowadays, you know_ and _if people want to contact you for work once all this is over, they need to be able to find you._ He hadn’t realised that by locking him out of an online presence, Upper Management had also been locking him out of a means of finding other work.

Surprisingly, it was Michael who spoke up. “With the level of interest they are generating, I do think it would be in the best option for the show to relax the restrictions around Aziraphale’s social media ban,” she said. She tapped a finger against her copy of the papers. Her eyes flicked in Aziraphale’s direction; he felt dissected, catalogued and dismissed in the space of seconds. “He’s hardly going to make the same mistake twice.” _Charming,_ thought Aziraphale.

Gabriel turned to Uriel. She had her hands folded neatly atop her copy; she had not moved since the meeting began. “It’s an easy fix, if that’s the direction you want to take,” she said, simply. “The clause simply states he cannot have an account against our wishes. If we wish it,” she shrugged, “it’s not a problem.”

Gabriel threw up his hands, grinning; this was a harder one to interpret, as it was simultaneously an expression of defeat and a celebration. Aziraphale wanted to take a photograph and send it to the authors of the body language book for classification. “I bow to the expertise of my esteemed colleagues, I guess!” he said, but his wide, white grin didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Aziraphale, you can have your account back. But keep it professional, ‘kay?” He winked, and there was something strangely threatening about it. “No going on tirades about what tea is best or offering your two cents over what the nation should name its boats.”

Aziraphale smiled and nodded. He had no idea why Gabriel thought he’d have controversial boat opinions, but thought it best not to ask.

“I’ll just take these,” Gabriel gathered his stacks of paper, altogether roughly the thickness of a breeze block, and tucked them under one arm. All three Upper Management heavyweights left the conference room in a poor facsimile of the lockstep in which they had arrived.

There was a cleaner making the rounds just outside. Aziraphale saw Gabriel dump his stack of research into their cart on his way past, but he could only smile in response. This was by no means over, but he could enjoy this moment. It had taken years, but he finally, finally had a decisive victory. He would have to find out from Crowley if Anathema had any particular proclivities when it came to champagne.

* * *

It used to be that the Saturday night performances were the highlight of Aziraphale’s week. The highlights of Aziraphale’s year, come to think of it. Being out there, being seen, getting to show the world—or, rather, the British public—the skills and talents he had honed his entire life. It was a high like no other, so it was funny that this year he found himself wishing there were just a few more days between one Saturday and the next. At first this had solely been due to the amount of work he foresaw himself needing to do to get Crowley up to snuff, but now he knew it was just that he delighted in teaching such a blank slate. Of course, it also helped that despite their somewhat spotted history, Crowley was much better company than his usual partners. Someone his age who shared enough common traits with himself to make conversation easy, but enough differences of experience and opinion to make conversation _scintillating._ No small wonder, really, that he wanted their weeks to go on and on. Rehearsals were a joy, and this week more so than usual, so it was with only a _slightly_ heavy heart that Aziraphale waited with Crowley in the wings for their chance to get out there and strut their stuff once more.

“Shame, really, that I never had a George Michael phase,” Crowley said, checking himself out in the nearest reflective surface _yet again_. Aziraphale privately agreed with him, though he was refusing to say so on the grounds that Crowley would become impossible to deal with should he get a swelled head. The denim, the black leather jacket, the pompadour his long hair had been stiffly moulded into, the sunglasses finally being permitted on the dance floor; it all added up to quite the appealing picture. George himself would have been very proud. Aziraphale’s equal-but-opposite outfit had taken some creative liberties. Sunglasses and denim, yes, but a white leather jacket with ‘FORGIVE’ emblazoned where Crowley’s said ‘REVENGE’, and a daring black t-shirt to contrast with Crowley’s white. Of course, he didn’t quite pull it off in the way Crowley could, but that was alright. Aziraphale’s earrings dangled from his left ear and Crowley’s right; one genuine aunt nelly fake, one modified with a clip. The earring set off the red of Crowley’s hair in a way that was deeply satisfying, aesthetically speaking. Aziraphale had creative control over most of Crowley’s outfits and accessories, of course, but the personal touch to this one really made him feel—

“Okay, you two, you’re on,” the runner that never seemed to be without a mid-show snack informed them. Crowley threw a devilish grin at Aziraphale and grabbed his guitar, running on ahead without him. Crowley naturally needed to be the focus of the opening for the routine: it was all in the hips.

The organ piped through the sound system, the lights came up, and the audience screamed at the sight of Crowley, facing the band next to a lit-up jukebox with a guitar slung around his shoulders. Aziraphale could not see from his position backstage, but he knew the camera crew would be sweeping their way in from above to focus on Crowley’s backside just as the jaunty guitar kicked in, double time. Crowley began to undulate those errant hips from side to side, faux-strumming the guitar. Aziraphale felt an unexpected pang of emotion— if they had a drink tonight, they must be sure to pour one out for George. 

Aziraphale’s cue came, and he ran out onto the stage just as Crowley spun to face forwards. Smooth as butter, he slid his guitar across the floor and into the waiting hands of a runner. They looked at each other for a moment, side by side, and Aziraphale felt foolish for even _considering_ that this was not the best moment of his week, every week. Crowley managed to find time to raise an eyebrow at him before they were off, hand in hand and Fallaway Rocking their way to centre stage. Halfway through the routine they separated to run around each side of the audience, encouraging them to clap along on beat, and when they came back together to start the Mooch part of the routine Aziraphale only realised he was singing along because Crowley was, too. Breathlessly, silently; they were both singing their hearts out.

The applause as they held their end position—Crowley spun out on Aziraphale’s arm—was riotous. Crowley turned to him with that now-familiar barking laughter that made him sound as though he was half laughing _at_ them, Aziraphale and the audience, for treating him with anything like approval. He slung an easy arm around Aziraphale’s shoulder as they made their way over to Jess and the Judge’s Table. Aziraphale thought back to the stiff, tension-locked Crowley of Week One. He was nowhere to be seen. This Crowley _swaggered._

“Well, well, well! I think after that performance, it’d be hard _not_ to have faith in the two of you!” cried Jess. _As witty as ever_ _,_ Aziraphale spared a second from catching his breath to think. “How are you both feeling after that?”

“Fine, Jess, thanks for asking,” Crowley huffed, pushing his sunglasses up into his hairline to wipe some sweat from his brow. “Could run a marathon right now and then do it again, honestly.”

“Well, be careful what you wish for! Ha ha ha! What do you think, Stefano, will Crowley have the unfortunate chance to dance again tonight? Bottom Two material or jiving their way to the top?”

Stefano had already leapt out of his seat, almost battering poor Vix in the process. “Anthony, something about your performance _moved_ me today in a way I have not been moved in a very, very long time. Maybe it was your high kicks, maybe it was your quick feet, but I have a feeling it was probably your—”

“Going to have to stop you right there, Stefano, and remind you _Strictly_ is broadcast pre-watershed!” Jess interrupted, in the most obviously-planned way possible. The audience ate it up regardless. Crowley began to roll his eyes, remembered he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses, and pretended to be very interested in the studio lights instead. Aziraphale bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.

“Well I _loved_ it!” Vix exclaimed, to the hoots and hollers of the audience. “My mum used to listen to that song when she was a kid, and I grew up listening to it, dancing round our kitchen. Proper feel good, proper good times. Good on you both!”

Aziraphale beamed at her, trying not to linger over the _when she was a kid_ part lest he slip into an existential crisis. Cressida cleared her throat, and any thoughts of Vix were instantly left by the wayside. Here was where Aziraphale would place most of his stock.

“First things first, I just have to make it absolutely plain. There was far too much _bottom wiggling_ going on and you took an awfully long time to get into the dance itself. That being said, you’ve put those hips to good use here, Crowley,” and here, lord above, Cressida Heathcote-Plumb _winked at Crowley_. Crowley blew her a kiss in return. Aziraphale was sick with jealousy. “But your arms are still flapping about. I had a lot of fun, before everyone starts booing me, so I’m not saying it’s all bad, but please, Aziraphale. Get _all_ of his limbs under control, if you wouldn’t mind. I want to see you two go further than this.”

“Well, a little from the positive, a little from the negative. Potentially it’s about to get a lot more negative. Alex, very quickly, what did you think?” Jess asked, clearly having to hurry them along to get the next couple up and dancing.

The audience was hushed. Aziraphale felt his heart, which had only just begun to calm down, race once more as Crowley’s arm tightened around his shoulders. Alex Simon Stokes had not been forgiving to them, not once, and Aziraphale was certain he wasn’t going to start now. The judge took a long, hard look at the two of them, before his gaze settled on Aziraphale.

“You know, out of all the years you’ve been on this show, you’ve always impressed me to a certain extent. I may not have always scored you highly, or said that aloud very often, but we are both professionals of a particular sort— I think we can recognise similar qualities in each other,” he toyed with the pen in front of him, pursed his lips. “So I really hope you understand me when I tell you this is the first year I’ve looked at you and thought _oh, he’s having the time of his life out there_. I have to say, it’s good to see.”

From the half-hearted claps and confused murmurs, the audience didn’t seem sure what to make of this comment. Aziraphale counted himself among them.

“So… what does that mean? You liked it?” Crowley asked, a little brattishly, and Aziraphale could have _murdered_ him if he wasn’t so keen to know the exact same thing.

“I didn’t say that, darling,” Alex Simon Stokes smiled. “I said it was good to see.”

* * *

* * *

Crowley shed the REVENGE jacket as soon as they got backstage and guzzled down two glasses of water with the elegance and finesse of a camel at an oasis. The leather might have been imitation, but the imminent heat exhaustion was real. He knew he was sweating— like, _visibly_ sweating, not gleaming or glowing or even perspiring, and he tried to look like this was an acceptable state of affairs. He could maybe have gotten used to exercise, or even enjoyed it, if it didn’t make him _leak_ everywhere. Aziraphale clapped him on the back as he moved past to have a word with Adam, white FORGIVE jacket slung casually across one shoulder like he was Danny fucking Zuko in Grease but with all the colours inverted, and Crowley winced because— well, that can’t have been pleasant. Like slapping the wet flank of an overworked horse. There was probably a patch in the shape of a hand right between his shoulder blades. He tried not to feel too bad about it. All the contestants were in the same boat, and they were a bit past the point of being precious about it by now. The reality of performance was chafing, and damp costumes, and streaky makeup, and that was the same whether you were on a film set, stage or dancefloor. All the glamour was at a distance, and when you came close, it dissolved into grime and patchwork like an old circus tent. Showbiz was pointillism. 

He should say that aloud sometime, so they could quote it at his memorial.

So there they all were, these seasoned professionals, hanging about, being polite about each other’s endocrine systems and double-fisting Evian and electrolytes. It was _probably_ safe to assume that he and Aziraphale _probably_ weren’t in the bottom two again this evening, so it _probably_ would have been alright to have a cheeky tipple, had any been available; but show policy was that anyone could be called upon to dance for their lives once the public vote was over, and it wouldn’t do to have contestants getting rat-arsed in the interim. Instead they had water and fresh fruits to tide them over while they lounged in the backstage lounge, waiting to film the closing minutes of the results show. Crowley sat on one of the uncomfortable low couches scattered about the room, nearly slid off, and anchored himself there with one arm slung over the back. In Week One, this room had seemed uncomfortably full; now, with twelve couples remaining, there was some breathing room. Eve was in a corner, chatting to one of the runners—the one from the sticker thing—and Adam and Aziraphale were having what looked like a heart-to-heart over at the opposite end. Sable appeared to be having a serious conversation with his partner about the calorie content of mineral water or some rubbish— he was one of those weight loss gurus people threw their money at, had a cookbook where everything tasted like cardboard and chia seeds. Pam from _Pam & Sam In The A.M. _was checking her phone while her partner did stretches. Then there was Carmine.

Carmine was not sweating. Carmine was, in fact, gleaming. Carmine was dressed in a midriff-baring top-and-skirt combo that made it possible to count every single one of her abs and, though he was obviously no expert, Crowley was still pretty sure she had more than the usual amount. Someone had braided her hair down her head and rimmed her eyes in kohl. She looked like a shield-maiden. She looked like a Valkyrie. She looked like ginger Xena. She looked at Crowley, and he felt his fight or flight response kick in.

Sometimes (often) women got the wrong idea about Crowley, and in his time he had been given more than one speculative glance across a crowded room from someone beautiful with the wrong end of the stick. This wasn’t one of those looks. This was the look of someone eyeing up her opponent, and when she sat down next to him, crossing one long, perfect leg across the other like she was crossing swords, he felt instantly on guard.

Of course, he smiled. “Carmine! How’s it going,” he said, casually. “Great performance out there tonight, as per.”

“And you,” she said. “You’re improving rapidly. I’d better watch my back.”

They both laughed at that, Crowley all the more heartily because he knew it was at his expense. There was no way he and Aziraphale could ever beat Carmine. She was a different league. 

“Nice of you to notice, but I think your real rival is over there, showing a runner how to tie a slip knot,” he said, pointing at Eve.

Carmine nodded. “I know,” she said, because of course she did. “She and Adam make quite the pair.”

For reasons he couldn’t really articulate, Crowley felt his stomach twist. He was being daft, he knew. Carmine Zuigiber wasn’t _actually_ dangerous, just very attractive and athletic in a way that makes people less attractive and athletic feel threatened. Still, he felt a foreign urge to put his skinny body between her and Eve.

 _She’d snap you like a twig, you great prat,_ he thought to himself, and shivered.

“I hear they’re an item, now,” Carmine went on. “Very sweet.”

“Mmm.” 

“That could do wonders for their popularity,” she mused. Her lioness’ eyes flicked between Adam and Eve, separated from each other across the gulf of the room. 

“Yeah, I mean, gorgeous, talented, _wildly_ compatible pair like that, why else would they get together?” Crowley said drily. He chuckled. Carmine did not. He chuckled some more, as if that would encourage her to do the same. “You can’t seriously think this is— what, a strategy?”

“Aww, honey,” said Carmine, and she patted him on the knee. Crowley managed not to flinch. “So naive.” 

Crowley was not naive, and he’d learned the birds and the bees of reality television a long time ago— _when two contestants pretend to love each other very much_ , etc. People got together for attention all the time, and then they broke up for some more attention, and then they got their own shows and a glossy spread in _Ciao!_ Magazine. That was the game.

But not Adam and Eve. Crowley had seen them in the rain. That was the real thing.

A shadow fell across Crowley’s left, and he jumped when he realised Raven Sable had settled into the couch on his other side. He hadn’t even heard him approach. Man was like a ghost. 

“Bloody hell, where’d you come from?” he laughed, nervously.

Sable smiled. Crowley got the impression that he had too many teeth in his mouth. “I’m light on my feet,” he said.

That was an understatement. Sable was almost guaranteed a place in the semi-final. Where Carmine was energetic and powerful and danced like she was going to take up arms against the backing dancers, Sable was quick and nimble, a shadow in his signature all-black costume. Crowley had opined to Tracy that Sable was copying his look just a _little bit_ , though the other man was more elegant goth than lost rocker. Sable always scored highly on footwork but lacked stage presence, according to the judges. Crowley privately agreed. 

“Crowley and I were just talking about our very own Romeo and Juliet,” Carmine purred. Crowley felt trapped between them, sweaty and confused and wondering why they were the only couple from Shakespeare who ever got a look in. His leg began to jiggle nervously again, and he glared at it like it was one of his disobedient plants. 

“Ehh, call me a hopeless romantic,” he said, “but I hope those crazy kids can make it work.” 

“You’re not concerned?” Sable raised one elegant eyebrow. “I thought you and Aziraphale were going for the popular vote?”

“We _-ell_ , yeah, but—” Crowley looked between them, more than a little baffled. “I mean, it’s Week Five.” 

“And? It’s a competition. If you don’t plan to win, you’re planning to fail,” said Carmine. 

“Oh, I like that.” Sable leaned around Crowley to nod at Carmine. “I might have to borrow that for my show, if I ever get it off the ground.”

“Show?” asked Crowley weakly, trying to steer the conversation onto more boring and therefore safer ground. “You’re working on a show?”

“Uh-huh. I call it _'Tipping the Scales’._ I teach people how to cook healthy, low calorie meals, and then show them a workout designed to burn off a little more than they just ate. I’ve got the tie-in books ready and everything.”

“That sounds…” _really fucking unhealthy,_ “lucrative.”

“Oh, it will be. I heard whispers that you have something in the pipeline, too, Carmine.”

“Sure, I have my own little project. I don’t have a pithy title yet, before you ask. But god, I’m _tired_ of _Gladiators.”_ She sighed, twisting her long, scarlet braid between her fingers. “I keep _winning,_ and there’s no clout there anymore. I needed a challenge.”

“This doesn’t seem all that challenging for you,” Sable grinned.

“Well. I don’t usually do non-contact sports.” Christ, if Aziraphale heard dancing referred to as a _sport_ he’d have a conniption. Speaking of–– Crowley looked desperately over at Aziraphale, still chatting to Adam, and managed to catch his eye. _Help,_ he tried to communicate, without moving his facial muscles or otherwise changing his position. Aziraphale looked at Sable and Carmine and Crowley’s wan face hanging between them and completely misinterpreted, giving all three a thumbs up and a cheerful wave. Crowley sighed. No help from that quarter.

Over his head, Sable and Carmine exchanged glances. “I do hope you’ll do well,” Carmine said to Sable. “I have respect for you. But not _too_ well.” Her teeth flashed. 

“Likewise,” Sable said smoothly. “Without a worthy adversary, well. Where would the fun be?”

Crowley had had just about enough of the two of them talking like Bond villains over a sodding reality TV show. It wasn’t even one of the rough ones. No-one had to eat bugs, no-one had to do inappropriate things with a wine bottle, Tyra Banks was not present. “This is all very intense, but you do realise you don’t actually _get_ anything if you win, right?” he snapped, leg bouncing away. 

Sable and Carmine looked at him blankly. “What are you talking about?” Carmine asked. “You get to _win.”_

Then she smiled, and Crowley amended his impression of her. It wasn’t just that she was beautiful and athletic and driven and had teeth like a military cemetery and eyes like bronze shields and a mind like the atom bomb. There was a reason she scared Crowley shitless.

Carmine Zuigiber _was_ dangerous. He just wasn’t sure how.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mort](https://mortifyingideal.tumblr.com/) & marginalia here. good god y'all, have your showrunners missed you
> 
> obviously first we just need to take a quick minute to say thank you for all the horrifically lovely things you said last week when we needed a break. you're all so fucking nice and we have lucked out with our readership. we have kept screen-shoots of all your comments to look upon when we need cheering up. make sure you're all giving yourselves a break when needed too. look after yourselves, please!
> 
> and now keep in mind all these nice compliments we just paid you as we make this following announcement: it's going to be another **two weeks** before the next episode. we're both still getting back to business as usual post-mental health shit, and the next episode is one we want to take the time to make sure it's as good as it can be because oh, what's that? behind your ear? could it be, our old friend...
> 
> HALLOWEEN WEEK


	7. Week Six — Couple's Choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **7:00pm** — The dead are a-dancing, the ghouls are a-groovin’, the monsters are a-mashing, and the faint-hearted are cowering behind the sofa here in Week Six. A witch plans to go abroad, celebrity and professional alike are shrouded in daft disguises and everyone gets _very_ familiar with spirits. The only thing scarier than the costumes are the judge’s puns: it’s Halloween Week!

* * *

There had to have been some mistake, thought Crowley. He and Anathema watched the credits crawl up the screen in a dead silence. Maybe the version they got was corrupted somehow. Maybe it was like when they watched the 25th Anniversary DVD of _Les Mis,_ and half of the musical was missing, and everyone just stood there singing rather than doing any acting, and also Nick Jonas was inexplicably there. 

“So clearly, somewhere along the line, we fucked it,” he said to Anathema, “because I know Aziraphale said this was the song, and I _know_ it’s got the Halloween connection because of the whole doing magic bit, but… _this?_ ”

Two hours ago—oh, a lifetime! An innocent time, two hours ago!—Aziraphale had sent Crowley a message reminding him of their next number. _I don’t know that one,_ Crowley had replied; a blessed fool, a babe in the woods. _Oh!_ Aziraphale had sent back, _I do believe there is a version of it on the YouTube!_ Fine, dandy. Crowley and Anathema had watched both parts of the number, tight-lipped. _Maybe it makes sense in context,_ said Crowley hopefully, and so they had rented and watched the 1998 stage performance.

It did not make sense in context.

“Anathema,” said Crowley, clicking his fingers in her general direction, “Anathema, hey. Hey, stay with me, here. This is a joke, right? You’re in on it, I know you are, _please_ be in on it.”

Anathema’s face was grave as she turned around her notebook, which had been clutched in her hands since the opening number. The page was covered in notes in increasingly hysterical handwriting. “I have several questions,” she said, far more calmly than the situation deserved. “Number one: what _is_ a Jellicle cat?”

Crowley threw himself further into his sofa. That was that, then. In less than a week’s time, Crowley was going to go on stage in front of the nation dressed as a _fucking cat._

“I know they did a whole song about it,” continued Anathema, tapping her lip with her pen, “but while there was a lot of information presented, none of it was actually informative.”

Crowley stared at the ceiling. It was a nice ceiling, actually. He should have paid it more attention. He should go round his flat and bid a fond farewell to his skirting boards and bath taps, all his underappreciated bric-a-brac, seeing as he would soon be ruined and destitute.

“Was it just me, or was there a whole cat orgy in there told through the medium of dance?” he asked.

 _"Not_ just you, and that brings me to Number Two, which is: why was that _so horny?”_

“Andrew Lloyd Webber.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Yep. Hey, I’ve got a question: how am I going to get out of this?”

“Number Three,” continued Anathema, as if she hadn’t heard him, “why were they _slut-shaming_ the old lady cat?”

“Those darn cats. Riddled with double standards, given Rum Tum Tugger’s whole… thing. Hey, Anathema—”

“Number Four, and this is _really_ bugging me: what is the Heaviside Layer? Is it cat afterlife? Are they being reincarnated, and if so, does cat reincarnation have more in common with the Hindu idea of an eternal Self or the Buddhist belief in a rebirth _without_ Self? Or is it more neo-Pagan in outlook? And what was with the big smokey staircase that came down at the end?” Anathema shook her head, chewing delicately on the end of her pencil.

“Those are all fantastic questions,” said Crowley, with a patience he did not feel, “but I have a much more urgent one.” He scooted forward on the sofa, and gently took one of Anathema’s hands in his. “Anathema, listen. How the fucking _fuck_ am I going to get out of this?”

Anathema cocked her head to one side. Crowley’s heart sank. “Get out of it?” she asked. A slow smile bloomed on her beautiful, traitorous face. “Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

She squeezed his hand, patted him on the shoulder, and jumped up. “Now, I need to borrow some of your stuff for the retreat.”

Crowley lingered on his pristine sofa, immobilised by dread. He heard Anathema pouring herself some wine, raiding his fridge, eating what sounded like his fancy charcoal and cumin crackers, all from very far away. He only snapped out of it when he heard her wander into his bedroom.

“You don’t leave until next Monday!” he protested, but he knew this didn’t matter. Anathema liked to be prepared. He followed her into his room, where she was, as suspected, demolishing the entire packet of crackers and staring at a list in her hand.

“So this Sam-Hain—” he began.

“It’s pronounced Sow-en, but go on.”

“—this Sow-en, what is it you actually do? Camp in the woods for four days, charge your crystals, do some yoga?”

“It’s a _convention and spiritual retreat,_ not camp. There will probably be crystals, yes, and yoga, and panels on the Tarot—”

“Attended by passing squirrels and open-minded badgers—”

“Attended by _several hundred_ practitioners across disciplines and belief systems,” corrected Anathema, pointedly. “I’m looking forward to hanging with some old Druid friends, personally, and my ex said she was gonna try and make it over from Louisiana—”

“Oh, it’s the social event of the season, this.”

“You’re just mad because I’ll be leaving you to fend for yourself,” said Anathema, quickly and ruthlessly hitting the nail on the head. Crowley scowled, watching her disappear into his walk-in closet to paw through his sundries. It wasn’t like he was worried about Anathema going away. He was an adult, he _could_ fend for himself. He just… would rather she didn’t, that’s all.

“Not much clothing for four days,” he said, eyeing the itemised list she had tossed on his bed.

She grinned at him. “It’s Samhain,” she said meaningfully. “And it’s a spiritual retreat.” 

Crowley blinked at her. Then he got it.

“Oh my god,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Well, you asked.” She twinkled at him from the Punk-Adjacent section.

“I wish I hadn’t, Jesus. You’re gonna freeze your bits off, it’s sodding October. Wait, forget I said bits, I’m your boss—"

“You are not even _close_ to being my boss, there’ll be bonfires and— _other ways_ to keep warm, and anyway this is hardly the most inappropriate—ooh, _pretty!”_ She held up Crowley’s silk Balmain blouse. He snatched it back as gently as he could.

“It should be, it cost more than a month’s rent,” he said, “and you’re not wearing it to go larking about in the forest!”

“Fine. What about this skirt?”

“Oh, I see. You’re not taking much to wear, but the stuff you _are_ taking is mine.”

“Well, it _is_ the social event of the season.” She fluttered her eyelashes, and as distressed as he was, Crowley snorted. If there was one thing he could respect, it was chutzpah. Damn her eyes.

“Take anything All Saints or Free People, you hippy. And there’s a bunch of that Victorian Governess vibe you like so much over there if you want to dress up a bit. God knows I won’t have any use for it,” he said, leaning against the door-frame tragically, “as after Saturday I will have pelvic-thrust my way off this mortal coil.”

Anathema poked her head out from behind a ruffled skirt, brown eyes wide and sympathetic. “Oh, Crowley.” She patted his arm. “If you die, can I have the blouse?”

He slid down the door frame to the floor, legs folding beneath him, and put on his most pitiable face. He pointed it at Anathema. Sadly, she was immune.

“You’re not nearly as upset as you’re pretending to be, so can it,” she said tartly. “You and I both know you’re gonna whine and scream and kick your spindly legs, but in the end, you’re going to put on the legwarmers and suck it up. Because you _like him.”_

Crowley rubbed his hands over his face. He did like Aziraphale, there was no disputing that. He liked him a lot. It was indecent, how much he liked him. But he had dignity, too, and a carefully cultivated image that absolutely could not survive skin-tight Lycra and painted whiskers.

Anathema’s phone rang. Speak of the Devil, and all that. Crowley made one last-ditch appeal to Anathema’s conscience.

“Anathema, listen,” he said from the floor. “You have to tell him. No matter what I—no matter how much I like Aziraphale, I mean it. I can't do it. I won’t. There is no power on this pestilent earth that can make me dress up as the Rum Tum Tugger.”

* * *

“Let’s all _paws_ for a second,” said Alex Simon Stokes, stifling a smile behind his pointed Dracula teeth, “and collect ourselves after that… _purrformance.”_

The crowd continued their tintinnabulation. Aziraphale straightened the cuffs of his sequined Mr. Mistoffelees jacket and waited for quiet. He thought it had gone rather well, himself, barring one moment of personal failure that he would bemoan in private.

He especially had to hand it to Crowley. He stood with his thumbs tucked in his studded belt, one eyebrow raised, looking for all the world like he hadn’t been whey-faced and cursing Aziraphale’s name in the wings ten minutes ago. Aziraphale should have known. Crowley was a professional, and this was a role Aziraphale had asked him to play. Besides, Aziraphale was beginning to think he understood the Rubik’s Cube that was Crowley’s ego by now, and no matter how stupid Crowley thought he looked, the situation was only embarrassing to him if he let people see he was embarrassed. As long as he kept up his trademark insouciance, he could carry it off.

And he had carried it off. He had carried it off with aplomb. There were definitely a few embellishments in their performance that hadn’t been discussed in the rehearsals—the bit with the tail was particularly inspired—and the Rum Tum Tugger look, well. It wasn’t _quite_ the Faith outfit, but it wasn’t hard on one’s eyes, either.

Jess, dressed as some sort of ghastly bride that dominated the visual field to Aziraphale’s left, laughed uproariously at Alex. “Cressida, you first. Comments?"

“Well, that could have been a real cat-astrophe,” said Cress, arch in her dalmatian-print coat and not as above the childish puns as Aziraphale had hoped, “but I think you just about managed it. Mostly through energy and panache. You seemed to have a bit of a wobble in the middle there, and you definitely dropped out of sync, which is very noticeable in jazz dance. But you recovered well,” she nodded to Crowley, “and you didn’t let it throw you off, so good on you. Honestly, I don’t know what it is about you, Anthony, but I _do_ enjoy watching you every week.”

“I think it’s my energy and panache,” said Crowley, grinning in a way that Aziraphale thought irresponsible, given the tightness of his outfit. Someone in the audience wolf-whistled.

“Settle down, there, you two,” laughed Jess. “Stefano? A truly Magical Mister Mistoffelees? Or more of a dog's dinner?”

 _"Miaow,”_ said Stefano simply, and Aziraphale felt Crowley try not to cringe to his right. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Stefano curled his hands into claws and made a playful swipe at the two of them.

“Moving swiftly on, Vix?”

“Well lads, it was far from _purrfect,_ ” she giggled, “but it still left me _feline_ fine!” The audience booed good-naturedly at the puns, and she laughed right along with them. “Sorry, I’m sorry, alright. _Babes_. You know I love you two, but that was all over the place. The good thing is you really feed off each other’s energy, but that can result in a lack of control? Aziraphale, I did notice you overextend on one of your swish splits, so maybe like, be careful that energy doesn’t carry you both off-course, yeah? But for real, though, _so_ much love for you guys.”

Aziraphale blinked. Was that Vix offering genuine, constructive criticism on their dance? Perhaps he had misjudged her.

Alex Simon Stokes also looked surprised. “I agree with Vix,” he said, as though he couldn’t quite believe it. “This was less about the moves and more about the performance. I know it’s theatre-slash-jazz, but this is still a dance competition. Next week, can we focus more on the dancing and less on the theatrics, please?” Predictably, the audience booed, and Alex waved an irritated hand.

“Oh, hush, you lot. Aziraphale, Crowley, it looks like you got away with it,” said Alex Simon Stokes. He pursed his lips. “But only by a whisker.”

“Alright,” said Jess, beaming, “why don’t you two hop up on the balcony and get yourselves a dish of cream to celebrate, yeah? We’ll be back in a moment with the scores!”

The point of Halloween Week, Aziraphale had explained to Crowley, was to be bold. In a sense, this was the week in which the quality of their dancing mattered the least; it was their _performance_ people watched for. That was why everyone was in costume. That was why the sets were so elaborate. Alex Simon Stokes knew that Aziraphale knew this, and _that_ was why he had been so annoyed. The very worst thing one could do in the eyes of the public this week was be forgettable—as the professional partnered with the young ex-girl-band member should have known, since they delivered a technically average but visually lacklustre jive that Aziraphale forgot about before it was even over. They would most likely be the ones going home this week.

Crowley had not listened to his very sensible, experienced and absolutely correct point of view, however. As they headed back towards the balcony, Aziraphale saw the smile slip right off his painted face.

“Have I mentioned,” said Crowley conversationally, “how much I hate you.”

“This week alone I think you’ve mentioned it several hundred times, but go on, dear, once more.”

“I hate you,” said Crowley, jerking his ruff back into place. It made him look like his fur was bristling. 

“I know, but believe me, this was a calculated move. Take my word for it.”

They arrived on the balcony to applause and smirks from the rest of the cast. Aziraphale heard a faint _“Eh up!”_ from Ron the comedian in the back. Why Ron thought he looked any _less_ ridiculous dressed as a green-haired gangster clown was beyond Aziraphale’s ken. He and Crowley got through their post-dance interview with Claudine—which contained several repeats of the cat puns they’d just endured downstairs—and were delivered their perfectly average scores with not much fanfare. Aziraphale wasn’t worried in the slightest. _It’s for the public, not the judges._ Repeating it to himself like a mantra would help him to get over his blunder at some point, he was certain. Free from their interview obligations, they leaned together on the barrier, watching the stage as the crew ushered away their plywood junkyard and wheeled on a large metal table.

“So was it also a _calculated move_ to cock up your magic trick?” whispered Crowley.

Now it was Aziraphale’s turn to cringe. “I can’t think what happened,” he said, wringing his hands. “I had all the pyrotechnics set up and tested, and the flag was _definitely_ in the hat before we went on—”

Crowley blinked. It was hard to see what expression he was making under all the face paint. “Are you properly upset?”

“Yes, I’m properly upset!” Aziraphale had many secret fancies, and the most secret and most fanciful of all was his love of stage magic. Becoming a dancer had taken practise, repetition, hard work and dedication, and he had taken that principle forward into his hobbies. He had devoted countless hours to the art of illusion, to mastering misdirection, patter, sleight of hand. He owned no fewer than three top hats. He could not understand why, after all that love and all that practise, he was still so damnably poor at it. 

Crowley shifted, and his elbow pressed further into Aziraphale’s.

“Look, it— it wasn’t that bad, and we managed to play it off as a bit of slapstick comedy, no harm done—”

“No, don’t bother, you can’t placate me,” Aziraphale huffed. “Anyway, hush. They’re starting.” 

Onstage, Adam knelt by the metal table in torn trousers and a shirt that was held on by the grace of god. His face was ashen, and livid scars bisected his skin. The lights went out. The two Tesla coils either side of the table sparked and glowed, and slowly, the figure under the sheet sat up. The crowd screamed as the fabric slipped from Eve’s shoulders, revealing her wide, staring eyes, black-painted lips, and the shock of white-streaked hair that had been teased and stiffened into the Bride’s signature hairdo. She turned towards FrankenAdam and leapt into his arms.

“See, why can’t we have done something like that,” whispered Crowley. “They look _brilliant.”_

Aziraphale had to concur. Tracy was apparently moonlighting as an electrician, as she had managed to thread small bulbs into the seams and folds of their costumes. As the lights onstage flickered, their costumes lit up as if they were sparking off each other.

“Look me in the eye and tell me you could carry _that_ off better than Eve,” murmured Aziraphale. Crowley hissed. The couple whirled around the floor as simulated lightning flashed, and smoke erupted from designated crannies in the stage. 

_Oh, of course it works for them._

“All I’m saying is,” Crowley leaned closer to Aziraphale, struggling to be heard over the crunchy metal the band was churning out, “you _owe me one,_ angel.” 

“I’ll make it up to you tomorrow night.” 

Crowley’s elbow shifted against his as he turned. “Why? What’s tomorrow?”

“Do you listen to me when I speak, or do you just hear a sort of buzzing sound?”

“I hang on your every word. Remind me again, though?”

“Adam’s party,” said Aziraphale. “I know you got your invitation. I saw Adam give it to you last week, and I forwarded the email he sent, and I told Anathema.”

“Oh, yeah, right,” said Crowley. His ruff twitched. He scuffed at the floor with his toe. “I just, er. Wasn’t planning on going.”

“Oh,” said Aziraphale. He found he was bitterly disappointed. Adam’s parties were a yearly tradition, and they were heaps of fun. There used to be an official function put on by the BBC, but it was so dull that in the end Adam had taken matters into his own hands and booked a separate gathering in a hotel in Shoreditch. Over time, this had morphed into being the official _Strictly Come Dancing_ Halloween party, with tacit approval from the Beeb under the condition that they all remained somewhat sensible and didn’t let their hangovers keep them from rehearsals. It was a little like being on a school trip after the teachers had gone to bed, Aziraphale had opined once, and Adam had liked that so much that he had put it in quotation marks on the invitations. 

He had been looking forward to having Crowley there this year. He liked the other professionals well enough, Adam especially, and he usually got on alright with the contestants. But he and Crowley were friendly, if not actual friends. It would be nice to go to a party, and schmooze, and chat, and then stand by the bar and admonish Crowley for his snide comments while privately agreeing with him. 

“You simply must come,” he said, although he hadn’t planned on saying that at all. “We would feel your lack immensely.”

Crowley shifted. “Really?” Aziraphale felt him waver; then, “I suppose I _am_ the life and soul.” 

“It would be so very dull without you,” agreed Aziraphale, feeling a grin pulling at the corners of his mouth.

“Besides, who knows what you’d get up to without me there to keep you in check. Debauchery. Keg stands. Dancing on the bar.”

“I’m an animal,” agreed Aziraphale, and he let the grin crack a little of his white face paint. He elbowed Crowley, and pretended to twitch his whiskers. “Eh? _Eh?_ ”

Crowley groaned loudly, drowned out by the applause as Eve and Adam’s dance wrapped up. “I’m placing a moratorium on cat jokes,” he grumbled, “and by the way, this makes _two_ you owe me.”

A small price to pay. 

* * *

* * *

* * *

The invitation had said absolutely nothing about a plus one, but no-one stood between Anathema and a good time. Crowley made the appropriate objections and then announced he would graciously allow her to come along on the condition she didn’t read anyone’s palms, and definitely didn’t let him make a tit of himself in front of anyone.

“Anyone, huh? Nobody in particular, just _anyone—_ ”

“Watch it, Device.”

It wasn’t all bad, really. Turning up to a party with a girl on your arm was par for the course if you wanted your Bond costume to look authentic. The fact that said girl had refused to actually come _as_ a Bond girl but instead was dressed pretty unimaginatively as a Balmain-wearing witch was something Crowley was willing to overlook, just this once. The benefit to these costumes, Crowley’s bow tie excluded, was that they looked like they did any other night they went out on the town together. This was a purposeful move on Crowley’s part— if the party was complete rubbish, they could bounce and still go for a drink somewhere else without looking like the sole Babadook in a room full of normal adults. There was a keycard to collect from the hotel’s reception in order to operate the lift to the top floor, and they bumped into Gabriel at the counter, who looked to be signing his key back over to the receptionist.

“Hey, Tony!” Gabriel grinned, clapping Crowley on the shoulder with enough force to fell a redwood. Anathema’s grip on his arm kept him aloft. “And Tony’s very persistent manager… agent… person.”

“Oh no, Gabriel, say you’re not going already,” Crowley pouted. “It won’t be the same without you up there. Overseeing the bar, organising the conga line, making sure nobody does anything to jeopardise the sanctity of the show....” 

Gabriel spread his hands wide and his smile wider. “Wish I could stay, bud, really do. But some of us have to actually go to work tomorrow. It can’t all be fun and games and invisible lassos, huh?”

Crowley felt his hackles raise, ready to bite back, but Anathema swiftly intervened by yanking him towards the lift doors and punching the button wildly. 

“So nice seeing you, Gabriel, but Crowley and I better get up there. And hey, _great_ Patrick Bateman costume.”

The doors shut behind them just in time to see Gabriel’s puzzled utterance of _“costume?”_ before Anathema smacked Crowley in the chest.

“You have to _play nice_ with him, Crowley. Or at least play slightly-less-obviously antagonistic.”

“I don’t have to do anything of the bloody sort,” Crowley growled, straightening his collar out.

“You do. If not for your own sake, then for Aziraphale’s.”

 _“Boo._ Cheap tactics, completely beneath you— you’re not going to be able to use that as an excuse forever, you know.”

Anathema shot him a look that managed to be smug, fond and completely frustrated all at once.

“You sure about that?”

The lift door opened on an odd mix of decor. The hotel was quite high-end and trendy, and the staff had done their best to honour the season with class and restraint. The ceiling of the bar area was draped with fabrics in black and jewel tones, very _vampiric boudoir,_ if you asked Crowley, and the rooftop terrace had a lot of stripped back brass statues, weird looking lamps, and fairy lights. Unfortunately, this completely clashed with what Crowley recognised to be a smattering of Wilko’s finest Halloween tat. Bright, garish orange garlands that spelled things like ‘SPOOPY’ ran from column to column, someone had made an attempt at hanging fake cobwebs around the copper lamps, and there was one of those motion-activated hanging mummies next to the host stand— which was understandably abandoned, all things considered. Anathema cheerfully ditched him before the lift doors had even closed, setting off the mummy as she scampered off into the throng of party-goers.

“Oh dear, did you miss the memo about this being a _costume_ party?”

Crowley startled, having been too distracted by the assault on his sense of taste to register the other presence. Leaning against the wall opposite the lift, almost as though he was waiting for someone to come out of it, was Aziraphale. 

“Was just about to ask you the same thing, angel.”

Aziraphale was wearing a brown sweater vest with a zip up the middle, brown khakis, and a white shirt with little printed brown leaves on. The only things that really differentiated this from his everyday wear was the thick-framed glasses on his nose, the plasters wrapped around his ever-manicured fingertips and, of course, the plant pot held against his chest. He fixed Crowley with a smug look so similar to Anathema’s it was spooky, and held the last element of his costume aloft, waggling it a little. Crowley, halfway through considering how long he could pretend he didn’t know exactly who Aziraphale was dressed as, blinked as he registered what was actually being shown to him.

“Aziraphale, did you buy yourself a _real_ Venus flytrap?”

“Well, yes. I like to go for a bit of authenticity in my costuming choices,” Aziraphale went to _pat_ the plant, perilously close to its open trap, and Crowley couldn’t help darting a hand out to stop him before he got too close and set the damn thing off, wrapping his fingers firmly but gently around Aziraphale’s wrist.

_“Careful.”_

“Oh Crowley, _really._ It’s not actually going to bite me.”

“I know that. It’s not you I’m concerned about,” he took the pot out from Aziraphale’s grasp and tutted at the little plant. “Figures that the fussiest man in the world would get himself the fussiest plant in the world as a _costume accessory._ Let’s have a look at you, then. Not much in the way of red on the inside here, are you getting enough sunlight? No, course not, it’s October. Getting ready for your hibernation, I’ll bet. I’ve been tempted to sleep away the winter myself before, I understand how it goes.”

Aziraphale was staring at him, Crowley could feel it.

_“What?”_

“No, no, nothing,” he reached out and took back the plant he was almost definitely going to kill within a day, “it just would never have occurred to me that someone who would come to a Halloween party dressed as a rich playboy who hasn’t done anything in life except owning a flat in Mayfair would know anything about _plant husbandry.”_

Crowley snorted, grinning lopsidedly. Alright, Aziraphale wanted to play this game? Crowley could absolutely play this game.

“I don’t have to take that from a—”

“Gentlemen! Sorry for the intrusion, but I wondered if I might steal Crowley away for a minute?”

Sable slid into the conversation like a hot knife would slide through _This Has Never Been Anywhere_ Near _Real Butter!_

“Oh, well, I—” Aziraphale began to say, but before he could finish Carmine was suddenly there, at his back. 

“Go on, you two go chat. I’ll keep Aziraphale and his little friend here from getting lonely without his partner,” she smiled. Crowley felt the slightly unhinged urge to save Aziraphale from this encounter before it had even begun, but as Sable placed a surprisingly strong hand on his back in order to lead him away Crowley had the sinking feeling Aziraphale wouldn’t be the only one in need of rescue.

* * *

"I’ve been desperate to talk with you.” Carmine took Aziraphale by the arm. _“Loved_ the performance yesterday. Let’s find somewhere a little more _private_ to chat, shall we?” She didn’t wait for an answer, expertly manoeuvring him away from the direction Sable had taken Crowley and over towards a quieter corner of the party. Aziraphale could not resist without being rude, and in the strength of her arms and grace of her gait he understood what it must be like to dance with her; like throwing oneself into a tornado.

They took a turn about the room, as if this was the Regency and they were trying to dodge their chaperones.

“We haven’t really had a chance to speak, yet,” she said, conversationally. She smiled up at him, something she accomplished despite the fact that in her heels she was an inch taller than he was. Aziraphale was fairly sure Boudicca had not worn heels, but he was equally sure that mentioning that to Carmine was a bad idea. She was very beautiful; he wondered how easy it was normally for her to get what she wanted from men, and if that ease irritated her. Because she definitely wanted something from him, he knew that. The soft light smoothed the creases in her face, glinted off the gold thread in her hair. He imagined it must be frustrating to be strong, and powerful, and intelligent, and have people cave to you not because of any of those things, but because God had granted you symmetrical features and a good bone structure.

“We have not,” he said. “Though I’ve of course watched you progress. You are an exceptional dancer.”

“Thank you,” she said, accepting the praise as was her due, and shook his arm playfully. “Are you threatened?”

 _V_ _ery._ “Somewhat,” he said, honestly. “But I have seen exceptional dancers in this competition before, and they don’t always win.”

She laughed. It sounded very genuine. Several heads turned to watch her do it, her teeth flashing, the long, pale column of her neck.

“That’s true,” she said, “And it’s kind of refreshing to hear you say it. Aziraphale, let me cut to the chase. I wanted to ask you,” she pitched her voice low, “if you’ve found a rehearsal space yet?”

 _Oh… bugger._ “We have a rehearsal space,” he said, the picture of innocence. “In the studio.”

Carmine chuckled throatily. “Oh, come on, you know what I mean. Your _other_ rehearsal space.” Her eyes flashed. “Cam and I are looking for one too, you see. It’s proving difficult.”

Aziraphale felt his mouth go dry. He had been worried about Gabriel and the others spying on him. It had not occurred to him to watch out for his fellow contestants.

“I thought we could share. Alternate mornings and evenings, maybe,” she went on. “You scratch my back, et cetera.”

Aziraphale glanced at her nails, and decided he didn’t want her scratching his anything.

“We are all allotted the same amount of rehearsal time.” _Oh bugger, bugger, bugger._ “Officially, practising outside of that would be against the rules.”

“Sure, Cam says it’s frowned upon,” she said dismissively, “but he also says that everyone does it. And hey. You and I both know this is a competition, right? Any edge.” She looked at him sidelong. Aziraphale’s stomach twisted itself into a Gordian knot. “And if you’re doing it, well, it can’t be that frowned upon. You strike me as a real by-the-book kind of guy. _You_ wouldn’t do something if you thought it would jeopardise your place in the competition. Or with the show.”

Aziraphale wasn’t sure if this was a threat. He looked at Carmine, and saw her clearly for the first time. He had met people like her before. Some would describe them as _driven_ and _goal-oriented_ , but this was just a charitable way of saying _ruthless._ One ran into them everywhere, but the television industry had more than its fair share. They were people who saw life as a competition, and for whom competition was life. Beryl had once had the misfortune to be partnered with a former contestant from _The Apprentice_ , and he had been much the same; focussed to the point of tunnel vision, he had come in early every day, refused to take breaks, lost his temper when Beryl tried to slow down, attempted to override her choreography and, once, violated safety guidelines, almost breaking her collarbone in the process. Aziraphale was convinced she had fluffed their routine in Week Eight deliberately to get him out of the competition and out of her hair.

Carmine could have faced a similar fate, had she not been partnered with Camael. Intensity was not a problem for Cam. The man got up every day with a frown on his face and a marching song in his heart. Sometimes Aziraphale heard him barking orders at contestants like a drill sergeant, which was just no way to carry on, in his opinion. It was a disastrous pairing. If anyone could be counted on to indulge Carmine’s competitive nature, it was Cam. In fact, he was probably over the moon with her. Prick.

"If we were looking, which we aren’t,” he murmured, “you’re right about it being difficult. Very difficult, so far.” he said. It was not entirely true, but it was the safest response he could give. He was frightened of her, he realised. How unreasonable.

“So far,” she murmured in response. She squeezed his arm, nails briefly digging into the wool, and perhaps he wasn’t being unreasonable at all. For someone who spent her days scurrying up climbing walls and beating people with foam weapons, she kept them dangerously long. “You’ll let me know if that changes, won’t you?”

Aziraphale nodded noncommittally.

“I hope we can be friends,” she said. “Enjoy the party. See you.” She winked, and slipped away. Her cloak trailed across the floor behind her, but not one person stepped on it.

Aziraphale realised he knew who the owner of the red motorcycle was.

Alert to all the red in the room, his eye caught on Crowley, engaged in what looked like a similarly uncomfortable conversation with Sable.

 _I will not let this spoil the evening,_ he thought to himself decisively. _We can worry about this tomorrow. I can worry about this tomorrow._

Tonight, he had a responsibility to— to _party down._

* * *

“You have an amazing figure,” Sable said warmly, and Crowley nearly spat out his drink. Sable looked him up and down in a way that was so blatant, even Crowley was as scandalised as a Southern Belle. Though he had dealt with this situation many, many times, Sable hitting on him was such an unexpected turn of events that all his usual tact went clean out of his head.

“Er—thank you,” was all he could think to say. It’s not that Sable wasn’t attractive, because he was, he was a very attractive man, and maybe a younger Crowley would have been up for a casual thing with an elegant, chilling, black-clad arsehole, but those times were long gone, and besides it seemed his tastes were _wildly_ different nowadays—

“What diet are you on? Paleo? Are you juicing? C’mon, what’s your secret?”

Oh, thank Christ, he wasn’t hitting on him, he was just weird.

“Nothing,” he said, quickly, relief kicking him in the solar plexus.

“Fasting? That’s pretty hardcore,” said Sable, clearly impressed.

“No, I mean, I’m not on anything. I don’t believe in diets. Life’s too short.” He hoped this would be the end of the conversation, because if they continued down this road Crowley wouldn’t be able to stop himself from saying what he really thought, which was that Sable was a fucking ghoul. Ironic, considering that the man clearly hadn't actually dressed up for the evening. He wasn't even in pseudo-costume, like Crowley and Anathema. Just the same old hideously expensive looking suit he always wore when not dancing. He took a sip of his drink to buy time, and nearly moaned.

“Bless my fucking britches, this is good,” said Crowley, momentarily so transported that he forgot who he was talking to. “Have you had one of these? I think it’s called a Big Smoke. Tobacco-infused whisky, cherry brandy, some kind of liqueur I can’t pronounce the name of—”

“I don’t do cocktails. Do you know what the sugar content is like in those things? I’ll stick to vodka.” Sable held up his glass. There was a sphere of ice the size of a tennis ball inside, with the barest inch of vodka in the bottom. “Low calories.”

“Well, cheers, anyway.” Looking at Sable’s glass distressed Crowley. Sable was nursing his drink so intensely that the ice was melting, diluting the no doubt very expensive, very good vodka down to nothing more than sharp water.

Crowley sipped his own drink, concentrating on the smoky, sweet taste. The bar doors were flung open to reveal the rooftop garden and lido that Crowley was sure someone would end up in given enough time and alcohol. He thought back to a different rooftop, and knew he wanted to get Aziraphale out there before the night was over. Loiter with him on the balcony with soft light and a decent buzz, listen to some crap music. Stand a little too close, maybe.

He couldn’t see Aziraphale, but he did see a familiar face pass perilously close to him and Sable, and he seized his chance at escape.

“Newt!” he shouted. Newt started and looked behind him, like there’d be someone else named Newt here. “Hello, you old so-and-so! ‘Scuse me, Sable, need to have a chat with my friend, there.”

Confusion flitted across Newt’s face. “Mr. Crowley. I didn’t—are we friends?”

Crowley laughed as if this was the funniest joke he had heard in his life. “What a card! Come on, mate, let’s get you a drink.”

He slung an arm about the boy’s shoulders. Newt smiled uncertainly, and allowed himself to be led away. Crowley felt Sable like a dark shadow at his back, but breathed easier the further they moved.

“So… erm, how are you?” asked Newt.

“Peachy,” said Crowley shortly. “Thanks for playing along. Scary guy, that Sable.”

Newt’s face fell. With a twinge, Crowley realised that Newt had _actually_ thought Crowley was glad to see him. He fumbled to cover himself, squeezing Newt’s shoulders in a very masculine, very lads-on-tour sort of way.

“Here, mate, have you had one of these?” he asked, gesturing to his drink. “It’s called a Big Smoke, it’s brill, come on. It’s on me.” He led Newt to the bar.

“What are you dressed as, anyway?” he asked, as they waited in line— a good way of taking the temperature of any party was by eyeballing the queue situation, and so far this one was lukewarm at best. Newt was wearing short trousers, a buckled hat, and some sort of doublet. “You look like it’s 1605 and you’re gunning for the Houses of Parliament.”

Newt touched his glued-on goatee self-consciously. “I’m The _Witchfinder General_.” Crowley looked at him blankly. “Vincent Price? Classic folk horror of 1968?” Crowley shrugged, and Newt sighed. “It’s alright, I haven’t seen it either. Horror films give me nightmares. This was just the first one I grabbed in the shop.” The bartender put his drink in front of him (with a straw, as requested) and he took a sip. “Blimey, that’s good. Is, er. Your manager here?”

Crowley scowled. “I don’t have to be watched twenty-four seven, you know. I can function without her.”

“That’s—not what I meant,” said Newt, and went pink. He should really try to get that under control, thought Crowley. It was like he had a mood ring for a face.

He leaned forward conspiratorially. “Oh, Newton, _Newton._ Do you have the hots for my publicist?”

Newt snorted. “Of course I do. She’s incredible.”

This matter-of-fact admission was bolder than Crowley had ever been about his own crush. He felt sort of… respectful? His opinion of Newt climbed several notches, from _“begrudging”_ to _“alright, really.”_ Wonders never cease. 

“She’s here, yep. Over by the DJ, trying to get him to play _Rhiannon.”_

“Oh.” Newt scanned the crowd, and Crowley could pinpoint the moment he spotted her. The colour in his face deepened, and his eyes did a sort of glassy thing. “Should I… go talk to her?”

“It’s your life.” Crowley sipped his drink, the picture of nonchalance. Newt’s eyes never left Anathema, who was dancing with her arms waving in the air like a one-woman kelp forest.

“Do you have any, um. Advice?”

“None whatsoever,” said Crowley cheerfully. “She’ll either like you or she won’t.”

“She’ll either like me or she won’t. Right.” Newt took a deep breath. “Okay. Thanks, Crowley.”

“I did literally nothing,” said Crowley, but Newt had already scurried away. One of these days, Crowley thought, he was going to have to take his own advice.

* * *

“I’m sorry, I can’t think where I put it. I’m not wearing my usual jacket, you see.”

Aziraphale popped the Venus flytrap on the bar stool beside him and rummaged deeper in his pockets for his wallet. The bartender watched him politely, pretending not to see the vampire, the Hannibal Lecter and the sexy lamp tapping their feet behind him. Aziraphale, despite his fifty years on this Earth, had never really learned bar etiquette, and so he didn’t realise that this behaviour was as deplorable as tearing up coasters or not bringing back his empties.

“Aha! Crisis averted!” Finally, Aziraphale pulled out his cash and paid for his drink. He had barely picked up his glass when Hannibal Lecter pushed forward rudely and demanded a Pornstar martini. Tutting, Aziraphale turned to collect his leafy charge— and faltered. Where before there had been a Venus flytrap in a rather charming clay pot, there was now _not_ a Venus flytrap, and he nearly stuck his hand in the lap of the third gangster clown he’d seen that evening.

“Oh dear,” Aziraphale said.

* * *

Crowley could not see Aziraphale anywhere. He couldn’t see much at all, because a lampshade wearing fishnet tights blocked half his view, but if he leaned _just_ slightly, he could watch Newt make his move.

“Why, Newton Pulsifer, you’re a _Witchfinder,”_ he heard Anathema say delightedly.

“I—yeah, I am.”

Anathema tipped the brim of her pointed hat. “Well, congratulations. You found yourself a witch.” She pulled him onto the dancefloor, Newt looking so happy that Crowley worried his spaniel heart would give out on the spot. He raised a glass in a toast.

“God help you,” he muttered.

* * *

“Up next on the turntables, we have the big man himself, the founding member of the So Strictly Crew, the one, the only, _DJ A-to-Z!”_

Aziraphale looked blankly at Adam, who was still holding on to the end of his Americanised “zee” sound, and peered down at the ‘turntables’— a hodgepodge of wires, buttons, little display screens that zipped about with coloured bars and read-outs of numbers that seemed to flash up entirely at random. He sniffed dismissively, then took a sip of his cocktail in an attempt to punctuate the point that he wasn’t going anywhere _near_ the thing. This was a mistake because it was quite delectable, making it incredibly tricky to keep up the disdainful expression he reserved for unnecessarily fiddly bits of technology and people who dog-eared hardbacks.

“Okay, scratch that— _ha, DJ humour_ —we’ll be right back after these messages,” Adam dropped his headset on top of the electrical behemoth that had been installed at the end of the outside terrace, throwing an arm around Aziraphale’s shoulders. “Alright, Aziraphale! What d’ya think?”

 _I think you’re making a terrible racket, just the same as you do every year,_ Aziraphale thought.

“Yes, you’re coming along in leaps and bounds. I do so enjoy all the… grooving.”

Adam grinned that same affable, face-splitting grin he always did—made all the more charming by the way it stretched out his little pencilled-on Gomez moustache—and Aziraphale found himself endeared all over again. He really was a sweet lad, at the end of the day. Baffling, but sweet. Aziraphale had only come over to ask if he’d possibly chanced across a stray plant pot, but now he was being swept away in the arms of jovial masculine camaraderie.

“I’ll get you up there one year. I feel like you’ve got a killer DJ inside of you, we’ll have you mixing Bach with Beastie Boys yet mate,” Adam chugged down what Aziraphale was almost entirely certain was 60% energy drink, 30% alcohol and 10% impending heart attack. “Any idea where our partners have run off to? Eve said she was gonna watch my set, don’t want her to miss the good stuff.”

“I’m sure she won’t,” Aziraphale said. Hard to miss what wasn’t there, after all. “I have no idea, I’ve been trying to catch him all night. The two of them are probably off somewhere, getting sozzled and complaining about what brutes we are in rehearsals.”

“Is that the sort of thing yours does, then? Whines all the time?” Adam laughed, cutting his way through the crowd to get to the bar, Aziraphale in tow. Moving about the room was getting more perilous as the music and blood alcohol content increased in volume. Aziraphale thought he saw Cam marching about, thankfully too far for Aziraphale to hear what had incensed him, and Ron appeared to have smuggled in a dartboard and was trying to persuade the staff that drinks and sharp projectiles were bosom companions. 

“Oh Heavens, _constantly,_ ” Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “What was it the other day, let me think. _Ah!_ That’s right, he got upset because I could click my fingers louder than he could. Ridiculous, isn’t it?”

“Go on then,” Adam gestured at his hand. Aziraphale smirked and raised his hand, clicking. “Blimey. I mean that’s. That’s loud.”

“Yes, well, his was only a _little_ softer, but he was feeling very delicate all week. I think it was the shock of the routine.”

Adam winced sympathetically. “Honestly, Az, mate? Can’t say I blame him. You don’t ask a guy to dress up like a cat for you. At least not before the third date.”

“Yes, well,” Aziraphale huffed. “I expected more of a fight on that front, I have to say, but he really was a willing participant from my perspective. I offered him an out and he said if it was the routine I wanted to do, he’d do it.” He flagged down the barman, ordering them both another round as he continued to ramble on. “I actually think he looked quite marvellous out there, don’t you? And let me tell you, if you told the Aziraphale Fell of Launch Week that he would be happy being partnered with Anthony J Crowley he would have— well, he would have done something _quite_ rude, let’s put it that way. But I have to admit, there’s something about all this that feels… different, than before. It’s all different, in fact, and I hope for the better. I’m including you in that as well. You with your Perfect Partner and me with my—”

“She told me she had a thing for him, you know?”

Aziraphale stopped short, looking at Adam with wide eyes. 

“Eve? For Crowley?”

He tried to keep his tone measured, but there may have been some instance of squeaking going on. Adam had just caught him off guard with his interruption, that was all.

“Don’t tell him, don’t tell him, oh my lord she’ll _kill_ me for telling you that,” Adam was still laughing, but he glanced around anyway, as though his partner was about to appear and enact justice.

“I mean, Crowley— he’s— for _Crowley?”_

There was something about this information that wasn’t sitting right with Aziraphale. He cast a fretful glance over at Adam, who had stopped laughing. He was looking back at him with an infuriatingly knowing, almost empathetic expression.

“It’s alright, Az. _Chill._ This was a long time ago now, and I’m not so small a man that I can’t handle knowing the love of my life is probably off having drinks with someone she fancied as a teen. You definitely have nothing to worry about either, it’s cool. That being said—” he downed the rest of his horrid drink in one go “—I best be off to find her. Reckon I owe her a tenner, and a Goddard always pays his debts. Er,” he paused, and then seemed to remember who he was talking to. “Ignore that, it’s a reference to— no, it’d take too long. Good luck with Crowley, mate.”

He clapped Aziraphale on the back with another one of those face-splitting grins, and Aziraphale called after him _“the love of your life?!”_ a fraction of a second too late. It was drowned out as Adam took up his table-turners once more. Aziraphale was already at the bar, there was no sign of Crowley nearby, and the cocktails truly were scrumptious. He downed the one in his hand, and immediately ordered two more.

* * *

“WHOSE PLANT IS THIS?” bellowed a voice. “YOU CAN’T LEAVE PLANTS LYING ABOUT!”

The Venus Flytrap, which had been minding its own business on the stool a few minutes ago, did not enjoy being swung to and fro. Plants are largely stationary; they are not meant to experience g-force. Its roots clutched at the soil in panic as its abductor marched around the party, thrusting the pot under the noses of the other guests and bellowing all the while. The person doing the swinging was a wiry, scowling man in a Napoleonic War-era military uniform and glued-on mutton chops. The military uniform was very accurate. The man possibly attended historical re-enactments on weekends, and _quite_ possibly owned a bust of Nelson. These were not the plants’ observations; the plant could not really observe much, because it was a plant. 

Luckily, a person who was excellent at both observation and intimidation decided to intervene.

“Oi, Cam!”

Cam spun round, and a little of the plant’s soil flew into a nearby glass.

“Yes, _runner?”_

“I’ve got a name, you know. It’s Pepper. I’ve worked here for months.” She would be hard to ignore. She was temporarily wearing a red bandana, but the scowl underneath it was permanent. “Haven’t you got anything better to do?”

“Like what?”

“Dunno. Defend British Imperialism. Be the very model of a modern Major General. Carmine’s already gone, you know,” Pepper said, conversationally. She leaned against a nearby pillar, arms crossed. “Left about half an hour ago.”

“So?” 

“So, nothing. Just thought she might want an early start in rehearsal tomorrow,” shrugged Pepper, “what with half the cast being hungover, and stuff. Give you two the edge.” She looked up meaningfully. “Might be pissed off if you weren’t on top form.”

Cam blanched down to his whiskers. He stormed past Pepper, shoving the Venus Flytrap into her hands as he went. She regarded it coolly, and the Venus Flytrap knew her as kin.

“Thank you for your service to the Spanish Inquisition,” she whispered, and tucked the plant safely next to a nice, if particularly stoic, monstera.

* * *

Crowley was heading for the Coat Room, completely ready to leave unfashionably early. There was only so much he could do to dodge conversations with co-workers he didn’t really give a shit about, and the three people he was actually bothered about chatting to were all otherwise occupied or absent. The person he was _most_ bothered about chatting to hadn’t put in an appearance since their little meet cute outside the lift. Anathema was lost amongst the terrible decorations, and he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Eve all night long. He swung open the door to the Coat Room, expecting nothing but coats, and was instead confronted with a lot of Eve’s hide, and how very little hair Adam had on his incredibly toned chest.

“Oh, fuck, _sorry,_ sorry!” He yelled, slamming the door shut. Eve’s signature throaty laugh, heard through the door, let him know that he was forgiven and that she was probably the sort who liked the danger of being caught out. Crowley decided he’d give them another ten minutes, have another drink, do another lap of the room, and then he was _really_ leaving. 

* * *

“Excuse me,” said Aziraphale. “Aziraphale Fell, _Strictly_ professional.”

“Brian,” said Brian. “Strictly Brian.” The boy shook Aziraphale’s proffered hand. There was chocolate on it. Aziraphale had seen him and his gang darting about all evening, dressed identically as green humpbacked creatures in bandanas. This one had pushed his orange mask out of his eyes and into his unruly mop of hair, and Aziraphale belatedly identified him as the grubby one.

“Brian,” Aziraphale gave his best smile, _"_ _Hello._ I’ve been reliably informed that one of your cohort was seen with a _particular plant_ this evening, and—”

“Ah, right,” said Brian. He tapped the side of his nose. What Aziraphale had taken for a hump was actually a hard, rounded backpack, and it looked heavy; it clunked as Brian hauled it off his shoulders and unzipped it to display the contents. Inside were bags and bags of fun-size chocolate bars of the kind people more sociable than Aziraphale bought for trick-or-treaters. Aziraphale raised an eyebrow in amusement, until Brian pushed aside the top layer of sweets to reveal assorted bottles of alcohol, rolling papers, and a battered tin shaped like the Mystery Machine. 

“Oh, I see. No thank you,” said Aziraphale politely. “I’ve my own at home.”

Brian shrugged. “Suit yourself. Want a Mars bar? This place costs a bomb, and there’s never snacks. Don’t grass.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Aziraphale, dubiously impressed by the entrepreneurial spirit of the _Strictly_ runners, “but actually what I’m really looking for is—”

Brian’s phone buzzed, cutting him off. The boy frowned at the screen. 

“Sorry, I’ve got to go, Adam just texted. My Adam, not your Adam,” he amended, at Aziraphale’s confused expression.

“I...don’t think I know your Adam,” admitted Aziraphale.

Brian looked incredulous. “How can you _not know_ Adam? Anyway, it’s Spanish Inquisition, so.”

“...Oh?” Either the boy was just saying nonsense phrases at him, or Aziraphale was drunker than he thought.

“It’s code. Excuse me, I’ve got to go jump in the lido. Wensley did it last time, you see.”

“Oh, by all means, don’t let me keep you.” Aziraphale decided that the easiest thing would be to act as if that all made perfect sense to him. “But, before you go— you wouldn’t by chance have any Curly Wurlys?”

* * *

“Oh, you _poor_ little peashoot.”

The Venus Flytrap was lifted up again, and squashed into a pillowy, velvet-clad bosom.

“You’re looking a little wilted, dear,” the bosom said. She tutted and clucked, pressing a tip of a finger into the soil. “Dry as a bone! Luckily, old Tracy knows just what you need.”

Plants do have a wide variety of needs in terms of light, moisture, nutrients and temperature; carnivorous plants trap and digest insects because their native soil is nitrogen deficient, and they require an alternative source. Still, there is not one species among the _droseraceae,_ nor the _caryophyllales,_ nor indeed the entire plant kingdom that would benefit from a dram of single malt. As a droplet hovered on the end of Tracy’s finger, the Venus Flytrap trembled.

“Madame,” said a voice, startling the finger—and droplet—away. “You look irradiated this evening.”

“Mister Shadwell! What a surprise.” The plant was clutched closer to the soft bosom. Tracy fluffed her orange hair.

“Yer costume is ‘squisite, though I dinnae ken what it is.”

“Costume? Oh, no,” Tracy tittered, “this is how I dress for a night out.” She paused, and fluttered her peacock eyelashes. “Or if I was going to meet a gentleman friend.”

“Oh… aye?”

“And what about you, Mr. Shadwell? Didn’t feel like dressing up, either?”

“Halloween is fer occultists an’ Americans,” sniffed Shadwell. “An’ I wouldnae be seen in public without me Armour of Righteousness.”

“Hmm.” Tracy stepped a little closer, playing coquettishly with a strand of orange hair. “What about in private?” 

The couple linked arms and moved away, promenading towards the Coat Room. The Venus Flytrap remained tucked against Madame Tracy’s hip, and it hoped, insomuch as a plant _can_ have hope, that it wouldn’t be a necessary part of whatever was about to take place. Also that there would be moths.

* * *

“Nice work, that,” muttered Crowley, eyeing the driver’s license the boy had left on the bar next to him. “Very convincing, but pushing it a bit with the birth date, aren’t we?” he felt it was his personal responsibility to help and advise with delinquency where he could. “Would have aimed closer to the Millennium, maybe.”

“Actually, I’m twenty-three,” said the boy— _man,_ accepting his glass from the bartender. Crowley felt himself develop back pain and joint troubles on the spot. The man— boy— _lad_ was wearing a purple bandana around his eyes, with thick-rimmed glasses perched on top. 

“My mistake. It’s the mask, makes you look younger,” said Crowley. “I ought to try it.”

“I thought that was why you always wore sunglasses,” the lad said, which was the most devastating thing anyone had said to Crowley in at least a few hours. He kept putting down his drink to make notes in a tiny book that said WENSLEYDALE on the cover in neat letters. Crowley was briefly distracted as someone hurled themselves into the lido, sending up a spray of screams, and one very recognisable cry of _“This suit is dry clean only!”_

Wensleydale smirked.

“Oh, well, that was bound to happen,” Crowley said, wisely. He cast a hairy eyeball at the book. “Gabriel got you doing surveillance?”

“Not Gabriel, no,” he answered, vaguely. He put a little tick against a line in his book when a soaking-wet Sable passed them on the way out.

“And I’m not _surveilling,_ really. I’m just a student of human behaviour,” said the lad, pushing his glasses up his nose.

“They’re offering degrees in that now?” That phrase had sounded less wanky coming from _him_ , he was sure.

“Actually, my degree is in accountancy, but what I mean is that I’m a writer. I study people and see how they interact so my scenes have a more naturalistic quality that reflects how human beings communicate with one another.” Wensleydale sipped his whisky, and made a face.

“Not good?”

“I asked for their best scotch they had.” Wensleydale frowned at his glass. “It should be good.”

“But do you _like_ scotch?”

Wensleydale looked a little embarrassed. “I like Hemingway. And Tennessee Williams.” 

“Who both drank cocktails. Get yourself a gin fizz and be happy.”

There are two ways all parties can possibly go. One way, everyone goes home to toast and tea and Netflix at a respectable hour, pleasantly drunk and ever so slightly disappointed. The other way, someone ends up in a pool.

This is what is known as a watershed moment. 

“Well then, Hemingway,” said Crowley, gesturing to the dance floor, where—despite the presence of a very wet Ninja Turtle—Newt and Anathema were getting very, very cozy. “Explain that. Seeing as how you’re a _student of human behaviour_ and all.”

Wensleydale observed for a few moments, then said, “Actually, Mr. Crowley, I don’t think there’s much to explain there. Sometimes people just get to be happy.”

He then flagged down the barman and ordered a gin fizz.

* * *

This time, Crowley really was leaving. Not that the weedy kid hadn’t been good company but, well. The weedy kid hadn’t really been good company. Anathema was clearly going home with Pulsifer, so he felt no obligation to wait around for her. He kept thinking he spied Aziraphale across the room, but every time he abandoned his post to rush towards him, the man had vanished like a will o’ the wisp. It was incredibly frustrating. At least he knew Gomez and Morticia were liaising with the leader of the Ninja Turtles at the bar. No worries of getting an eyeful in the Coat Room _this_ time, he thought as he opened the door.

“Oh, _Christ alive!”_

“Mister C!”

“Awa’ ‘n bile yer head, laddie!”

Crowley slammed the door shut. One more drink. _One_ more drink to scrub that image from his mind forever, and _then_ he was leaving. Coat or no fucking coat.

* * *

“D’you know,” said Newt, gasping a little after having downed a pint glass of water. “My life was a bit… dull, until a few weeks ago.”

Aziraphale, who had positioned himself at the quiet end of the bar for a _reason_ and was not particularly enjoying having that peace interrupted, tried his best to contain his complete and utter lack of surprise at this statement. Newton, thankfully, was either too intoxicated or too happy to notice.

“I mean, before tonight even, I’d never— never kissed a girl, never smoked a joint, never robbed a bank. Well. Not done that one yet.”

“The night is young,” Aziraphale said, drily. He actually thought the night was looking a little long in the tooth and had been considering heading home, having spent most of his evening _sans_ plant and partner.

“Mr. Fell, I’ve never felt this way about _anyone_ before,” Newt hiccoughed, then added, “‘cept Dick Turpin, of course.”

At this, Aziraphale felt a swelling sensation in his breast that left little room for his earlier ennui. His machinations had brought together two people so oddly suited, through such a roundabout series of circumstances, that Austen herself would have been proud.

He was also fairly confident that she, too, would have ignored the part about Dick Turpin.

* * *

“As I live and breathe. Anthony James Crowley.”

“That’s almost my name, don’t wear it out.” 

Eve swayed over to him. Crowley was desperate to know where she got both her black silk dress and the courage to wear it somewhere with a higher than average chance of being doused in spirits. She was in the first phase of drunkenness, the confidently graceful one, rather than the second phase, which was confidently falling over. 

“Hmm. Jason?”

“Nope.”

“See. Haven’t seen you in so long, you’re fading from memory.” She lowered herself onto the couch, dramatically swooning into his side.

“That’s weird, because _I_ saw _you_ not long ago. More of you than I would care to, actually,” said Crowley, pointedly. “That won’t be fading from memory any time soon.”

“I should hope not.”

“Though I’ll grant that it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve seen tonight.”

“Flatterer,” she grinned, elbowing him. Then, as if to clear her name, she added: “Adam and I did not have sex in the Coat Room.”

“I would not judge you if you had,” said Crowley honestly.

“And that’s what I like about you, but I just want that on the record.” She tucked her feet up on the couch, wincing. “Also, these heels are absolutely murdering me.”

Crowley wasn’t surprised. After a certain height, heels stopped being footwear and started being wearable architecture. Eve practically had the Shard strapped to her feet. “You need one of those gel things,” he said.

“Nah, it’s the straps, they keep digging in.”

“Roll-on deodorant on the underside? Stops them chafing.”

Eve groaned. “Where were you at six o’clock when I put these fuckers on?”

At six o’clock, Crowley had been pacing back and forth in front of the mirror and tying his bow tie for the tenth time. He’d almost wanted to leave it crooked, just in case there might have been a particular someone at the party who could tut disapprovingly and fix it for him, soft hands fluttering at his neck. It now hung either side of his collar, which he’d unbuttoned in deference to the last of the October warmth. Adam was up at the DJ booth again, scratching two records together in the hope they’d conceive a tune. It sounded godawful, but bless him, at least he looked happy. Eve watched him with a soft expression that felt… private. More private than walking in on her having not-sex with Adam had been, even. He cleared his throat.

“So,” said Crowley.

“So,” said Eve.

“That’s him, then.”

“Yep.”

Crowley sniffed, looked off to one side. “Could’ve put money on the two of you, y’know.”

Eve chuckled, nicking his drink from his hand and taking a sip. “Funny, I just collected on a very similar bet involving you. Ten whole quid for stating the obvious— easiest money I’ve made in my life. Oh, and speaking of, next week is Aziraphale’s turn for the Botafogo thing, yeah? Fancy a flutter?” She rubbed her fingers together like the world’s most glamorous bookie. “Adam did pretty well this week, I’ll put good money on your man not being able to take him.”

Crowley—who had absolutely _no idea_ what a Botafogo was when it was at home, but was confident that if it involved either dancing or food, Aziraphale was a safe bet—lost his chance to take her up on those odds when Adam looked up. Suddenly, it was like Adam and Eve were the only two people in the world. Adam handed his headphones off to a Ninja Turtle, who crammed them on over his blue bandana to triumphant cheers from his co-conspirators, and headed over. He almost looked like he was going to walk right past, but a few feet away he stopped and did a double-take, putting his hand to his pinstriped chest and staggering. “Oh my _god_ ,” he said. 

Crowley half-rose, concerned, but Eve rolled her eyes. “He always does this,” she murmured.

“I don’t normally do this, but I saw you from across the room,” Adam said, “and I thought, damn, that is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life. What’s your name, beautiful?”

“Jog on, mate,” said Eve, but she was grinning.

“Did it hurt, though?” Adam’s smile was a mirror of hers, “when you fell from Heaven?”

“No, but that line did.” She stood to meet him, groaned at the pain in her heels, and sat back down. Adam huffed a laugh. He knelt down and gently undid the straps of her shoes, easing them off her feet. 

“Can you still dance?” he asked gravely. 

“Just try and stop me.” And when she stood, she was just as graceful and steady as ever. 

Adam waved to the DJ, and the track switched to the opening notes of _Can You Feel The Love Tonight_ by Elton John. Eve put her face in her hands and groaned.

“Seriously?” she cried.

“Serious. So serious, look at my face,” said Adam. “C’mon.”

Eve turned back to Crowley, pointing dramatically at him. “Do _not_ go anywhere! We have bets to discuss.”

Crowley raised his glass to her in a silent promise, and leant back to watch what was sure to be a very soppy, very embarrassing show of affection. Perhaps he should get his phone out, capture some of it for blackmail material. Distract himself from the itchy feeling and the strange, unwelcome lump in his throat. He was Anthony J Crowley, and Anthony J Crowley definitely wasn’t jealous of _anyone_ who considered dancing to the sodding _Lion King_ romantic. 

But still. He wouldn’t have said no to a dance tonight. Provided there was a decent song, and the right partner. 

He wouldn’t have said no. 

* * *

“Hallo, Sergeant! Tell me, have you seen—"

“Brazen, ‘ent she?”

“Hm?”

Shadwell pointed a shaking finger at the dancefloor. “Her. The deceiver.”

Aziraphale followed the finger’s trajectory and arrived at Anathema, jumping up and down with young Newton in a distant relative of dancing. The tip of her pointed hat bobbed.

“Wearing her dark regalia out in public!” huffed Shadwell. “Flaunting her witchery! Seducin’ my second with her… wiles!”

Aziraphale was fairly sure that hat had been bought for five pounds at the Co-Op, and that Newt could be seduced by a stiff breeze.

“I, er, think we got the wrong idea about Ms Device, actually,” said Aziraphale. “I’ve had a chance to… interact with her, and all signs point to her being really rather nice.”

Shadwell grunted. “Could be more wiles. I’ll keep her under observation,” he muttered. He straightened his lapel; he looked, if possible, even more rumpled than usual. “I’ve been meanin’ to tell ye, Sire— I enjoyed yer performance last night. Some excellent prestidigitations.”

This was a turn up for the books. “I… didn’t think you would approve of stage magic,” ventured Aziraphale, “given your stance on the occult.”

Shadwell puffed up in incredulity. “Magic is an indecent practise. Illusion is a prodigious and noble art! It requires skill. Cunning. Years of dedication.” He paused. “And the hats are a different shape.”

“I… see.”

“I especially liked the one with the kerchiefs. Tell me, do ye know the one with the pea an’ the three cups?”

“Well, I don’t have any peas on hand, but I do always carry a pack of cards! Though perhaps now is not the best… oh, alright. Pick a card, any ca— no, _not_ that one—”

* * *

“Hello, little one,” said a quiet voice, and once again the plant was picked up and held aloft. “What are you doing in here?” 

There had not been any moths in the Coat Room, so this was a welcome turn of events for the Venus Flytrap. Its leaves perhaps got a little glossier, its stems a little straighter. There was something about this person that was… good. Like a small sun shining through glass. Insofar as the plant wanted anything, it wanted to grow a little more, in her presence. 

“This isn’t where you belong, is it?” murmured the voice. “Not to worry. I’m good at knowing where things are supposed to be.”

There was a clatter as a very clumsy person half-fell into the room.

“Anathema, where are—oh. Is that a Venus flytrap?”

“I’ll be back,” Anathema replied. She carried the plant back out into the din. “I’m going to put you on this table, here,” she murmured, “and in a few minutes Aziraphale will be by to pick you up. He won’t see you right away, so be patient. Stay out of trouble until he finds you, okay?”

The plant was very obedient. It waited.

* * *

Crowley felt the seat cushion dip. There was a familiar scent, like old books, tea and spices.

“Hi,” he said, as Aziraphale settled next to him.

“Hello, stranger,” said Aziraphale, and just then, it was all worth it; every asinine conversation and embarrassing interlude was fine, because there was Aziraphale in his stupid plastic glasses, smiling and gorgeous under the outdoor braziers. He held his plant in one hand, tucked tighter than was really necessary against the generous curve of his hip, and a little high-stemmed glass in the other that was nearly empty. Crowley immediately wanted to offer to go get him another, but that would mean leaving the sofa and possibly surrendering his place by Aziraphale’s side, and that wasn’t worth the risk it brought.

“Goodness,” said Aziraphale. “We’ve been rather torn asunder, tonight!”

“We haven’t half. Not you two, though,” he added, nodding towards the Venus flytrap. “Have you been carrying that around all this time?”

“Oh, yes. All night, in fact! My constant companion. Still, it’s nice to finally talk to someone who can hold a conversation.” Aziraphale flashed a mischievous smile that Crowley knew was just for him. “My evening has been _dreadful,_ what about yours?”

Crowley grinned, and refrained from saying something cheesy along the lines of _well, it just got a whole lot better._ He wanted to while away the rest of the night on this sofa, chatting to Aziraphale under the warmth of the heat lamps, basking in his presence, staring wistfully at the green scum swirling on the surface of the lido. He also wanted nothing more than to grab the man and abscond somewhere they could have a proper conversation, away from the pounding bass line of whatever was playing now Adam, Eve and Elton had made sure that all the kings and vagabonds in attendance would believe the _very_ best.

“Atrocious,” he offered, swirling the last of his cocktail around in the glass. “Even if I could have forgiven the decor, dancing and din, the drinks here are rubbish, don’t you think? Could do with going somewhere else, getting a proper drink to close out the night.”

“Rubbish? I don’t believe—” Aziraphale was frowning as he began, but one look at Crowley’s face and his expression melted with a soft, indulgent huff. “Now that you mention it, they _are_ a bit watery, aren’t they? It’s all the ice, you see.” There had been no ice in the glass Aziraphale was carrying. “A good glass of wine, however, well. No ice whatsoever required there.”

“Don’t suppose we’d get a good glass of wine around here. Pity, that.”

“Tragic. Though perhaps, if it’s not too late for you, you might like to share a taxi home? Stop off at my place along the way,” Aziraphale was already standing, downing the last of his cocktail as he went. “Mayfair and Soho are practically neighbours, wouldn’t be tricky for you to get home after. I’ve got several excellent vintages back at my humble little abode. It’s no rooftop terrace in Shoreditch, mind you.”

“Well, in the absence of any other decent option,” Crowley said, trying to savour the last sips of his Big Smoke. He’d have to come back sometime. “Let’s get out of here. You grab our coats, meet me by the lift, yeah?”

* * *

“Oh my— so sorry! Sorry! I shan’t look, but er, actually, while we’re all here... Anathema, would you pass me Crowley’s coat?”

“I knew you’d find each other.”

“Yes, I’m escorting him back to Soho where the two of us are going to make a jolly good go of drinking me out of house and home. Ah, thank you my dear. Now, I believe you’re also lying on top of— yes, that’s mine, thank you so very much. Don’t stay out too late, you two, it is a school night after all.”

“W-we won’t, Mr. Fell.”

“Yes, ah, Newton, I believe—considering the circumstances—you can just call me Aziraphale.”

“Right, yep, noted. Mr Aziraphale, sir. Aziraphale. Thanks.”

“Well, I shall just close this behind me, shall I? Toodle-pip!”

* * *

Aziraphale had the taxi drop them off at the corner where Wardour Street joined Shaftesbury Avenue rather than right up to his front door, claiming a walk and a bit of fresh air was just the ticket. Crowley wasn’t going to disagree. The cab ride had been blessedly quick, and the cabbie had taken one look at them, instinctively realised they were both Londoners, and not said a word the entire drive. Aziraphale hadn’t had any such qualms, and he nattered on about his new Twitter account, lamenting that people still didn’t seem to believe it was him. This conversation followed them out of the taxi—which Crowley subtly paid for—Aziraphale’s constant vocalisations leaping with them off the pavement next to St Anne’s and rounding the corner onto Old Compton Street.

“Everyone else has these handy little check-marks next to their names that let people know it’s truly them, and I haven’t! I mean, of course I’m me, who else would I possibly be? If only I’d managed to get my own name as a handle then it would be much more obvious, but would you believe that someone else has it! I mean, what are the chances there are two Aziraphale Fells running around out there?”

Crowley didn’t have the heart to tell him that, actually, the person with the @aziraphalefell handle wasn’t _really_ called that—the chances, after all, were astronomically low—and would just be one of those very enthusiastic fans. Anathema had bartered with @anthonyjcrowley for _weeks,_ but had put a stop to it when they started asking for bits of him as payment. She wasn’t above giving away some very personal items, but apparently a lock of his hair was too far as there was “just too much someone can do with even a strand of a person’s hair.” Crowley had happily declared he wanted no further details.

“Just take a few selfies and stick ‘em on there. People’ll go mad for it, and it’ll show that you’re really you,” he offered. Aziraphale all but lit up.

“Oh, yes! Quick, quick, take one of me in my costume,” he all but shoved his phone into Crowley’s already waiting hands.

“Do you want me to mess about with filters, or—”

“No, no, just as is. Be sure to get my good side!”

“It’s all your good side, now stop talking.”

Aziraphale straightened his spine and beamed aggressively as Crowley took the picture. With the plant and the pose, he looked like he had just won first prize in a village horticultural contest.

“That’s a winner,” Crowley said. He passed the phone back.

“Splendid. Right. _‘A shiny… new… penny… to whosoever… correctly guesses my… costume’_ ,” Aziraphale murmured as he typed out the tweet. His hair glowed under the streetlight. Crowley took out his own phone, snapped a picture before he could think about it too hard, then tapped out a brief message.

Aziraphale’s phone pinged.

“Gosh, that was quick!” Then Crowley saw him roll his eyes at the reply from @ajcactsofficial which read:

> _Seymour from Little Shop of Horrors. Where’s my penny?_

“That’s cheating,” said Aziraphale, wagging a finger at him, “and not behaviour becoming of Her Majesty’s finest Double-Oh agent.”

 _“Ha!”_ Crowley wagged a finger right back at him. “I bloody _knew_ you knew!”

“Crowley, we’ve been over this, you’re hardly _subtle,”_ Aziraphale laughed, and began fishing around for his keys on the approach to his door. “You sent me several photo messages of your little window stickers for your car, and several more text messages bemoaning the fact you couldn’t drive your car into the party. Wasn’t much of a leap to realise who you’d be dressing as.”

"I knew who you were the moment I saw you, too. I'm not such a philistine that I haven't seen Little Shop. Always had a weird lifelong crush on—"

"Oh, don't tell me,” Aziraphale deposited his plant into Crowley’s care, presumably to better hunt for his keys and not as a grim foreshadowing of who would be responsible for looking after the blasted thing in the future. “Steve Martin as Orin Scrivello, D.D.S.?"

"Actually I was going to say Rick Moranis," Crowley cleared his throat, then held up the plant to distract himself from how his heartbeat quickened as that familiar stretch of pavement came into view. “So, that would make this fussy little madam Audrey II?”

“She’s named for a different fussy little madam, actually. Anthony J Crowley, it would be my honour to introduce you to Anathema II.”

Crowley laughed at that, a bit too harsh and a bit too loud. Not because he was nervous about finally getting to go into Aziraphale’s flat or anything ridiculous like that. It wasn’t that he was all too close to living the fantasy he’d had almost every time he’d dropped the man off— namely, getting out of the Bentley and following Aziraphale to the little side door, pressing him into it with eager hands and lips, feeling that touch returned, maybe hearing a little sigh or the sort of moan that was reserved now, he knew, for something particularly delicious. Being drawn into the entryway without a word, fumbling up the stairs together, chasing the soft light that shone down whenever Aziraphale turned to wave at him. Then, Aziraphale would close the door behind him and Crowley would still be sitting in the fucking car. The familiar light upstairs would come on and Crowley would peel off into the night, turn up the radio as loud as it went and resolutely _not think about it_ until the next time.

All of this is to say that, between getting a lid on his desire and his usual attitude towards such establishments, he’d never paid that much attention to the bookshop downstairs. He’d been _aware_ of it, in a general sense, yeah. He could remember thinking to himself, that first time dropping Aziraphale off, _in another life, he’d probably own that place._

He should have known, really, that the ‘another life’ part of the equation was completely unnecessary. Crowley watched Aziraphale march right up to the door of the bookshop and brandish a very large key to unlock it. 

“What are you doing?” He was aware this was a stupid question, because it was entirely obvious what Aziraphale was doing, but he couldn’t stop himself.

“Well we can hardly go upstairs,” Aziraphale answered, already inside and darting about, turning on the myriad of mismatched table lamps to give the room a soft, warm glow. “I hadn’t expected company tonight and it’s not fit for purpose. Besides, I keep all my best vintages in the safe down here.”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley was still standing in the doorway, holding onto Anathema II like she would personally be responsible for his salvation. “This is a bookshop.”

“Bond himself could not have done finer investigative work, my boy.”

“Aziraphale–”

“Crowley, I’m more than happy to explain the concept of a bookshop to you, but I would ask that we do it when we are both inside and the door is shut? Heating a building like this is not cheap.”

“Right, yep, sorry,” Crowley moved inside, closing the door behind him. It felt… weird. To be here. Somehow this almost felt more intimate that going upstairs would have. He felt like he was staggering around in Aziraphale’s brain. “So, you own a bookshop. Wait, _do_ you actually own this bookshop? Am I aiding and abetting a bit of B&E, because I gotta tell you, angel, I’d be into it.”

That may have been laying it on a bit thick—and entirely too honest, he needed to sober up or get more drunk as soon as possible—but Aziraphale laughed all the same.

“Do you often find yourself in the company of criminals with a key for the front door?”

“You could have lifted it off the poor old dodderer who actually owns the place,” Crowley hummed, depositing Anathema II by the very, very old till and making a silent promise not to leave her to die here in this dusty graveyard. “I’ve seen you do close-up magic now, I know what you’re capable of. Your depravity knows no bounds.”

“Make yourself comfortable,” Aziraphale called over his shoulder, ignoring Crowley’s digs as he disappeared behind one of the towering bookshelves. “The _old dodderer_ who owns the place will fetch up some more wine, just be a tic.”

*******

Somewhere around their third bottle of red—and in the midst of a conversation that was both managing to be about how Aziraphale had come to own a bookshop and also how they would personally attempt to save the world should it, for some bizarre reason, come down to the two of them—Aziraphale sat up like a shot from his slumped position. 

“We’re going to rehearse here!” he exclaimed.

Crowley blinked, trying to follow how they’d gone from whether or not publicly accessible space travel would be available in this apocalyptic hypothetical to rehearsing at 2am on a Monday morning.

“Rehearse… here? In your bookshop?” He tried not to sound as incredulous as he felt.

“Oh, pish,” Aziraphale waved a hand. “I can clear some space. No, listen, I’ve thought about this. We need extra rehearsals, we need a private space to do it. This is the _best_ place I can think of.” He smiled happily, looking around encouragingly at Crowley, who was thinking about his big, sparse rooms in Mayfair. His clear floors, his high ceilings, his state-of-the-art sound system. He swept his eyes around the bookshop, with the never-ending piles of books everywhere, haphazard furniture from several different centuries, rugs with corners that were just dying to trip him up and the crackly old gramophone that was chugging along with their fifth Ella Fitzgerald record of the night.

“S’perfect,” Crowley said, meeting Aziraphale’s gaze once more. He swayed up out of his chair and held out a hand. 

“I didn’t mean _right this moment,_ ” Aziraphale laughed, smiling up indulgently at him. “My dear, we are—for lack of a better word—trollied. You won’t learn a thing, and I’m in no fit state to teach.”

“Doesn’t have to be serious,” Crowley shrugged.

“Just… for fun?” Aziraphale asked, and it felt like two questions at once.

“Shits and giggles,” he agreed solemnly, to make Aziraphale laugh again. Crowley pulled him up out of his chair, and carefully navigated them around a few piles of books—loudly muttering _'_ _scuse me’s_ and _pardon’s_ to Tennyson, Austen and Dumas as they passed—until they reached a slightly clearer space on the floor.

“Right, go on then.”

“Oh, am I leading?” Aziraphale asked, all faux innocence as though he wasn’t halfway through arranging his hand around Crowley’s waist.

“Well, I _would,_ but don’t want to get confused when we have to go back to work tomorrow. Don’t wanna, y’know. Take you hostage. No, no, that’s not— wossitcalled. Hijacking!” 

They weren’t really holding a proper position, Crowley knew enough about dancing now to realise, as they started to move. This was more the sort of dodgy half-waltz you’d see an unprepared couple do for their first dance at a wedding.

“As if I’d let you,” Aziraphale sniffed. He started to hum along with the music as they swayed around the space. It wasn’t really dancing by any professional standards. It wasn’t really _anything,_ except for the parts where it was—like when Aziraphale shifted a little closer, so that Crowley’s head was almost in alignment with his shoulder, and if he tilted his head _just so_ their cheeks would brush—and then it was really something.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale interrupted himself halfway through harmonising, “I’d like you to be prepared, because I think I may be about to pay you a compliment.”

“And here’s me thinking we were just having a nice moment, and you’re about to spoil it.”

“Shush, listen, listen to me now—” he entreated, as though Crowley could do anything else. As though he wasn’t beholden to the man’s every word as it ran along his cheek, tickled into his ear. “I really must insist you allow me to tell you how impressed I am at your progress. If you’d asked me your chances at the onset of the competition, I’m sorry to say I would have probably been quite vicious.”

“Vicious? _You?_ ” Crowley grinned. “I can’t picture it.” He could _perfectly_ picture it. 

“I can feel you smiling, you know,” Aziraphale tutted, but with their bodies pressed as close as they were he could feel the pleased little wiggle thrumming beneath the surface, how it manifested in the gentle flex of his hand where it was clasped around Crowley’s. “It doesn’t matter, I meant what I said, Crowley. Tease me all you like.”

Definitely _not going there,_ Crowley thought.

“Well, between you and me, I’ve gotten incredibly lucky with my teacher. S’all his doing.”

“Oh, he sounds delightful. Must have oodles of patience. Headed for sainthood any day now, I’d imagine.”

“On second thought, I change my mind, he’s a right bastard and I’ve only managed to get this far through my own sheer bloody-minded determination.”

“See, my dear. Not so hard to admit your own part in it all, is it?”

Crowley, standing straight one moment as he contemplated exactly how easily Aziraphale had played him just then, blinked— and then found himself a lot more horizontal than he had been. He briefly worried his body had finally caught up to how drunk he was and he’d fallen on his arse but no, there wasn't a pile of toppled books beneath him. He wasn’t in pain. He was being held up by a solid hand on the small of his back.

Aziraphale had _dipped_ him. 

They held position in the pleasant scratchy silence of the gramophone, the song having ended without Crowley noticing. Aziraphale slowly pulled him back to his feet, which was a mistake of catastrophic proportions. Now that they were both vertical once more and he had the advantage of being scant few inches taller, he could see perfectly how Aziraphale’s eyelids had half fluttered shut, his mouth was slightly parted, and— _for god’s sake—_ there was even a dusting of pink on his cheeks. Faced with this vision that would give Saint Theresa and all of her divine ecstasies a run for their money, Crowley found himself on the verge of doing something completely fucking mad. 

It was something of a mixed blessing when Aziraphale got in there first.

* * *

Aziraphale was on the verge of doing something… well, _inadvisable,_ shall we say.

The evening had been so lovely, and Crowley a charming conversationalist as per usual, even if halfway through one of his long, philosophical rambles he’d forgotten how to pronounce the word _décolletage_ and ended up sounding like a stuck record, low voice stuttering in an almost-melodic way over the consonants. It had been silly, and sweet, and though Aziraphale couldn’t remember exactly why they’d been discussing anyone’s _décolletage_ in the first place he had still mocked Crowley mercilessly, as was his wont. He really shouldn’t have let himself be tempted into dancing, though. That had been a dreadful mistake.

They stood there together—dance and song long since ended—and Aziraphale had been slowly considering a great number of things. He’d been considering how this round of dancing had made him feel similarly to when Crowley had lasso’d him from across the studio, laughter and hands on his waist tugging him in. He’d been considering the way Crowley had looked, illuminated by the flame from his cigarette lighter, that night on the roof. He’d been considering all the small, gentle smiles that Crowley graced him with on the occasion he was certain nobody was watching. And yes, he’d been considering how devastatingly handsome Crowley was at that exact moment, how wonderful it felt to hold him like this, how easy it would be to press him into the nearest surface and keep him there for as long as either of them might like.

Aziraphale was considering the fact that he needed to kiss Crowley that _instant_ or else he may perish on the spot.

It had always been a problem for Aziraphale, the disconnect that could occur between his mind and his body. Where his brain was still carefully considering all the pros and cons of this situation, his body was running off ahead, lips already parting, eager to get to the part where something very pleasant indeed would happen— confident that once it got there his mind would be silenced and happily come along for the ride. Glancing off to the side—a gesture he knew could be interpreted as coquettish and demure, but was more of a defence tactic in circumstances just like this when he knew he needed to collect himself a bit—his eyes alighted on a collection of Tennyson’s Arthurian poetry, and a hysterical thought suddenly emblazoned itself across Aziraphale’s mind.

_THE CURSE IS COME UPON ME, CRIED THE LADY OF SHALOTT_

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, rather unhappily.

“Oh?” Came the reply, rather closer than he was now comfortable with.

“Oh!” Aziraphale startled, and wheeled backwards, away from Crowley and straight into one of the pillars. A soft _‘oof’_ was forced out of him and Aziraphale clutched his hand to his chest, trying to catch his breath.

“You alright?” Crowley asked, laughing slightly and looking a little relieved. He either hadn’t noticed anything was amiss, or he was being very kind. He was kind so often, and Aziraphale wasn’t certain he deserved it at this moment.

“Yes! Yes, just,” Aziraphale waved a hand, trying to think of some credible excuse. “A bit too drunk, not completely in control of, ah, myself.”

Crowley smiled, and Aziraphale almost couldn’t bear it. 

“I know the feeling. S’pose that’s my cue to be off, then,” he looked at his horribly gaudy wristwatch, and Aziraphale thought about how the heft of it highlighted how delicate Crowley’s wrists were, the lovely shape of his hands.

_Desist at once!_

“It is getting a bit late, isn’t it?” Aziraphale started ushering him to the door. 

“Angel, it was _getting a bit late_ four hours ago, we’re well past that now.”

Aziraphale shivered involuntarily at the low, purring way Crowley said ‘angel’. Had he always said it like that? Like he was spooning a large dollop of honey out of a jar and pouring it over something completely delectable? Several moments were lost to imagining exactly where Crowley might drizzle honey for Aziraphale to best enjoy.

“This is a _complete nightmare.”_

“What?”

“I said, mind how you go! There’s a chap,” Aziraphale unlocked the front door and gestured for Crowley to move through it. Crowley, for his part, just looked deeply, deeply amused, and only a touch confused at the hasty end to the evening.

“We still on for lunch tomorrow?” He asked, ambling out into the night.

“Lunch? Tomorrow?” Aziraphale said, his wits nowhere to be seen.

“If you’re gonna be too hungover for it, tell me now. I don’t want to wake up any earlier than needs be.”

“No, no, lunch sounds—yes, that’s fine, perfectly tip-top. Tickety-boo!”

_“Tickety-boo?”_

Aziraphale patted the door frame distractedly, looking anywhere but at Crowley. When you’re a person composed mainly of angles and cheekbones, any lighting will naturally be in your favour, but there was something about the way the lamplight lit Crowley from above in this particular moment that was incredibly enticing. Aziraphale could feel his body—and yes, very well, the loudest part of his mind—demanding that Crowley be returned to the shop and his arms at once.

“Text me, won’t you? W-when you arrive safely home, I mean.”

“It’s not even a fifteen minute walk away, angel.”

“Still…”

A sigh.

“Yes, _mum,_ fine,” Crowley was clearly grinning now, and with a lazy wave over his shoulder and a promise to pick Aziraphale up tomorrow, he was off into the night. Aziraphale shut the door behind him, then collapsed back against it like a _Mills & Boon _ heroine.

Aziraphale wasn’t an idiot. He knew he and Crowley had been keeping up a sort of flirtation. What was the phrase Anathema had used when texting him? _Frisson._ There was _frisson,_ and they were both guilty of it. After all, Crowley did flirt an _awful_ lot and Aziraphale was, as anyone could attest to, a competitive sort. He could give as good as he got, and he’d been getting rather a lot from his partner recently. He had assumed that it was just part of their bit. Not exactly underhanded tactics to win the public vote—nobody was watching them in the majority of their rehearsals, after all—but just a way for them to become more comfortable around each other, mentally and physically. To enhance the performance of the dance. He’d done it before. Flirting with women may not have been his personal preference, but a professional flirtation was no hardship.

At least, not until now.

The issue, Aziraphale thought wretchedly, was one of trust. It had taken him a lot of courage and stern internal _talking-to’s_ before he could trust Crowley again for the sake of the partnership, and even now that trust teetered on the edge of a very high shelf in his mind. To believe that Crowley _meant_ any of this, that it wasn’t _just_ a flirtation, for a bit of fun, for—what was the delightfully vulgar phrase he had used?— _shits and giggles_ was a risk he wasn’t sure he was willing to take. Still, Crowley wasn’t the greatest issue here. The greatest issue was that, when it came to whatever this thing was between them, Aziraphale didn’t trust _himself._

Aziraphale was certain that, if he looked at it head-on, he probably _wanted_ Crowley enough that he could talk himself out of being sensible, throw caution and their tentative friendship and the competition to the wind and give himself over to pleasure and indulgences. But who was to say this wasn’t just a passing fancy, the result of being thrust together once more by some higher authority with a twisted sense of humour, and mistaking that for something more, something meaningful? 

He moved further into the shop, and picked up the book of Tennyson. Aziraphale had always assumed he’d be safe from this particular quandary—his partners, naturally, had never been his type—and so had never planned for what he might do if it ever did befall him. Of course, the Strictly Curse didn’t _technically_ apply here. Neither of them had someone waiting at home who would run off to the press, betrayed and heartbroken by it all. No, any consequences wrought by whatever action was taken here would be shouldered by Aziraphale alone. Would that make it worth it? Would it be worth what little time he may have with the hungry thing he knew he’d seen in Crowley’s gaze that night? _One_ of them had to be good about all this, one of them had to keep a firm hold on himself. History was all too willing to remind him that, at the end of the day, Crowley had experience with walking away from difficult things. Aziraphale had learned to stand firm in the face of adversity.

But, still, Crowley was _very_ nice to look at, and it had been a while since he’d felt like this, and maybe there was a way for them to... Aziraphale stopped himself, knowing he could go on in a similar manner all night— finding reasons to resist, and then finding little loopholes as to why he shouldn’t listen to reason.

 _There we are, you see,_ he thought, tossing the book back down, _I would look toward Camelot every time. I’m simply not to be trusted._

He made three paces of the room, then glanced back out the door only to see that Crowley was hovering at the end of the street, a little black speck illuminated in the streetlight right on the corner. _Perhaps he’s just lighting a cigarette_ , Aziraphale rationalised, in a very calm and controlled manner and not at all desperate as he wandered back over to the doorway, _or contemplating calling an Oover. Mayfair may not be far away but the streets are dangerous at this time of night! There’s nothing about this that suggests he’s thinking about the shop, or about me, or turning round and marching right back to the shop in order to—_

His thoughts were mercifully interrupted before they could run away with him entirely as he watched the figure underneath that neon glow do exactly what Aziraphale had both hoped and feared he would— Crowley turned back to look at the shop. Heart pounding away at the mere thought of being discovered in his vigil, Aziraphale threw himself back from the doors, colliding with the counter. The till chimed in protest, and drew his attention down to where Anathema II was resting, left behind to stand witness to his tiny breakdown. 

“This,” he finally said to the little plant, lifting it off the counter, “is terribly inconvenient.”  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SIX! SIX! SIX! THE NUMBER OF THE WEEK!  
> hello and happy summerween from your showrunners mort & marginalia! 
> 
> we've not got much to report on this week. mort wishes they had enough knuckles to get 'RUM TUM TUGGER' tattooed across them (this is not a bit). marginalia would love to meet Andrew Lloyd Webber in the pit (or for a rumble round the back of the local Maccas).
> 
>  **EDIT** — just so you're all aware, we're sticking with the two week update schedule for the time being! so if you're looking for a new chapter this week (01/08) there won't be one! it'll be next week for the new chapter. in future we'll still post teaser trailers and extra meta on the non-update weeks, but we both just need a bit of extra time at the moment to write LB around some other stuff going on in our lives. we know you'll all understand, because you're all very very wonderful. thank you!


	8. Week Seven — The Samba

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **7:00pm** — Average scores, above average popularity, below average communication skills— our lads are halfway through the competition and have graduated from stepping on physical toes to metaphorical ones, from dancing around old feelings to dancing around new ones. Seven weeks down, seven to go, and finally we're getting to what everyone's been tuning in for this whole time. That's right... it's time for the Guinness World Records Strictly Pro Challenge!

There’s no signal on the Underground. It is quite possibly the only place in London—hub of global communication, nexus of commerce, Very Busy Place—where a mobile phone becomes the insensate brick of glass and metal that it is. A phenomenon many Londoners are familiar with is the moment on the escalator coming up from the Tube when signal returns, and all the emails, text messages, Facebook notifications, missed calls, alerts from LinkedIn, Co—Star predictions and angry tweets flood in at once and give your phone a pinging, quivering breakdown.

Metaphorically speaking, Aziraphale was halfway up the escalator, and it turns out that processing several weeks of intense unacknowledged attraction had a lot in common with being a besieged iPhone. At the most unsuitable times of the day, Aziraphale would smack himself in the forehead and groan _“earring!”_ or _“soor ploom!”_ as he belatedly remembered yet another instance where he had _absolutely_ been having a right flirt with his dancing partner. In the middle of ordering at a tea shop on Tuesday morning, for example, he had said, “hello, yes, I think I should like the gunpowder blend to—oh, _for God’s sake_ I lit his _bloody cigarette!"_ to his server, and had to apologise profusely for the outburst.

“This is terrible,” Aziraphale muttered to himself, staring fixedly into a display case of cakes and pastries while he waited for his order. “This is an unmitigated disaster. Of all the things to— no, this is not to be borne.”

“Yeah, chocolate and rosemary seems a bit of a risky pairing, doesn’t it? Not convinced, myself,” said a fellow customer, following his gaze to the offending cake.

“It’s very ill-advised.” Aziraphale was only half-listening. “We’re so different. Not suited at all.”

“Flavour profile’s all off,” the man agreed.

“A severe lapse in judgement, that’s what this is.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go _that_ far—”

“A moment of weakness brought on by—by unusual circumstances, and stress, and, alright, loneliness, perhaps. An understandable impulse, forgivable, even, but certainly not one to be acted on.”

“It’s only a cake,” said the man, perplexed.

Aziraphale nodded to himself, muttered, “Right,” and then turned and walked out of the shop. He left the tea, because he had realised he’d only wanted it because it smelled a bit like Crowley.

Fortunately, he felt sure that the object of his affections hadn’t noticed anything amiss. Yes, brunch had been a bit iffy, and he’d had to very quickly rescind his drunken offer of extra rehearsals in the bookshop for the week under the guise that he needed to _“sort out the space”_ before it was fit for dancing, but he was certain he had behaved professionally in Monday’s rehearsal. He was smooth and impenetrable as an egg. Crowley had no idea.

“You alright?” asked Crowley, fifteen minutes into Tuesday’s session.

Aziraphale paused in the middle of his sentence, which he thought might have been about _samba de roda_ and the musical genre’s roots in the West African slave trade in Brazil, though now he had stopped talking he was no longer sure. Crowley was looking at him oddly, sunglasses clutched loosely in his hand. Aziraphale had forgotten to take them off him.

“Pardon?”

“I said, you alright? You seem… I dunno, off.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to deny it, but before he could, Crowley added, “I’m just asking, because yesterday I _did_ watch you pour tabasco on a _beignet.”_

“I was trying something new,” lied Aziraphale.

“Mmm. I thought you were just hungover.”

“That, too.”

Crowley looked at him searchingly, arms folded. “And today?”

Aziraphale flailed around for an explanation that wasn’t _I cannot concentrate because every time I look at you I have thoughts of such an inappropriate nature that I fear in future I shall have to be blinkered like a carriage horse._

“Today… I have a mild digestive issue.”

“Well, that’ll be the _beignet.”_ Crowley grinned. “Look, are you sure—”

His phone rang. Crowley let out a stream of curses that was, even for him, a little excessive. Aziraphale used the reprieve to centre himself, and to not think about the pleasantly sibilant way Crowley said _“bastard”._

“Sorry,” he said, hanging up with unnecessary force. “With Anathema off glamping, everyone who normally rings Anathema’s ringing me.” He looked disgusted. “Me! Like I’ve any idea what my appearance fee is. How’d they even get my number?”

Aziraphale suspected that Anathema, in her infinite idealism, was trying to teach Crowley a lesson about the difficulty and significance of her job. He might have told her not to bother.

“Well, they can leave a message. We must concentrate,” Aziraphale said, as much to himself as to Crowley. He eased the phone and the sunglasses from Crowley’s hands, trying to touch the least amount of skin possible as he did so. He could feel the wryly amused expression aimed at his back as he set them at the edge of the room.

“Do I get them back at the end of lessons?”

“You get them back when we can do five bars of the routine.”

“There he is,” Crowley said, grinning. He was slightly freckled on the shoulders, Aziraphale noticed. How rude of him.

 _Concentrate._ “What was I saying?”

“You were telling me about the difference between traditional samba and ballroom samba.” One of his teeth was slightly crooked, which was definitely a deliberate and disarming ploy.

“Yes! Right!” What a relief— this sounded like him. “Ballroom samba is a _disgrace,”_ Aziraphale said. “Samba music is incredibly rich and varied, as are its accompanying dances. Though it’s commonly associated with Rio de Janeiro and Carnival, and many innovations in dance and music began in the _favelas,_ that’s a simplistic and incomplete view of the genre! There are differing styles and schools across the country. In comparison, ballroom samba is a something of a _flattened_ version designed to appeal to a European and American audience— which is the case with a number of the Latin dances, I’m afraid, but that’s a whole _other_ kettle of fish—"

“You know, you told me all this yesterday,” said Crowley, continuing to have clavicles.

“Oh.” Aziraphale struggled to right himself. “Did— did I tell you about the bossa nova and the influence of jazz—”

“Yep.” Crowley yawned, and stretched, and Aziraphale felt his brain go a little fuzzy at the edges.

“Now, I’m fairly sure I didn’t.” Those stupid trousers were far too low on his hips, because Aziraphale could see the ridge of Crowley’s hipbone and a faint dusting of reddish hair at his navel.

“Fair cop, no you didn’t. Pretend you did, though.”

Aziraphale struggled to tear his eyes away. “I— I really think—”

Behind them, they heard the unmistakable rustle of a crisp packet. Aziraphale spun guiltily. Sat on the floor, legs splayed out in front of him, was Newt, eating a packet of cheese and onion with the most morose expression Aziraphale had seen outside of an Edvard Munch painting.

“Sorry,” said Newt. “Am I bothering you?”

“Only in a very real sense,” said Crowley, looking as baffled as Aziraphale felt. The fact that neither of them had noticed his arrival was a damning indictment of their observational skills. Newt nodded, reassured, and went back to his crisps. There was something wrong with the lad. He looked like a screwed up tissue. They watched him take his phone out of his pocket, look at it, and crumple further. 

“Is there…” Aziraphale tried to be delicate, “not that we aren’t glad to see you, but… why are you… in here?”

“I just didn’t feel like being sat out on my own, that’s all,” said Newt glumly. “It gets lonely out there. Guarding the door. No-one to talk to or— or text.”

Aziraphale did care about whatever had gotten Newt into this state. Really, he did. He just didn’t care right now. He was about to suggest to Newt in the kindest terms he could muster that perhaps he should have his sulk somewhere else, but to his surprise, Crowley got there first.

“Hey, mate,” he said. He put his hands in his voluminous pockets, shuffled over, and kicked the sole of Newt’s outstretched foot with his toe. “C’mon. Y’alright?”

Newt gave a one-shouldered shrug. Crowley nodded as if this was an answer. “Yeah,” he said. “I get you. What’s up?”

Aziraphale watched, fascinated. He had only ever seen Crowley interact with his female friends. This was like seeing a nature documentary where the research assistant used their subjects' methods of communication to gain their trust— only instead of Jane Goodall and the gorillas, it was Crowley and a straight man. 

“Anathema?” asked Crowley, which was a good guess, because as soon as Newt heard her name he folded like a cheap anorak.

“She hasn’t texted me back,” said Newt miserably, his chin retracting even further into the collar of his shirt. “After— after Sunday—” he went pink, “I thought maybe we were going to. I thought maybe we might start going out. We didn’t _discuss it_ —” he added hurriedly, “and she doesn’t owe me anything, she’s her own person, and I mean, well, she’s wild, isn’t she?” his eyes took on a dreamy cast. “I wouldn’t want to tame her.”

 _Strewth,_ thought Aziraphale.

“Sure,” said Crowley.

“Even if we just had the one night, it was— well it was amazing. I can’t complain. But I was hoping… I was hoping.” He picked up his phone again, looked at it, and put it back down. Aziraphale felt a tremendous rush of sympathy, because, by god, they had all been there, hadn’t they? Perhaps not Crowley, as he appeared to be trying not to laugh at the poor boy, but all the other lovelorn buggers of the world.

“That’s the thing about Anathema,” said Crowley, patting Newt on the shoulder. “Free spirit.”

“Yeah,” sighed Newt.

“She’s maddening. Self-assured. Independent.”

“Exactly.”

“And in Scotland. That’s another thing she is, currently.”

“Yeah and— what?”

Crowley nodded seriously. “She’s in a forest somewhere learning how to, I dunno, trap someone’s voice in a seashell or something. Wasn’t clear. Point is, there’s no signal in the woods.”

“No signal?” Newt looked up hopefully, and Crowley stopped trying to hide his smile. “So— so she hasn’t seen—”

“Nope. Left first thing Monday morning.”

“No signal,” Newt whispered. He beamed up at Aziraphale, and it was like all the creases had dropped out of him. “No signal!”

“No signal,” agreed Aziraphale. He glanced at Crowley, who had jammed his hands back in his pockets and was trying for all the world to look aloof and disinterested and not at all fond of the man in front of him, who was grinning like a loon and twisting his crisp packet into a wonky flower shape. Aziraphale didn’t think his partner would thank him were he to point out he had done something rather, well, nice. Again.

“If you don’t mind, Newton, we do need to get back to rehearsing,” prompted Aziraphale, as much to distract himself from the feeling in his chest as anything else.

“Oh, yeah, sure,” said Newt absently, his expression still one of rapture. “Don’t mind me.”

Crowley and Aziraphale then had a silent argument over Newt’s head about whether or not they should just chuck him out, which Crowley won by using the cheap and underhanded tactic of being handsome. 

“Alright. As I was saying— the history of samba is a long and fascinating—”

“You did that bit.”

“Right. Yes. Just watch me for the basics, hmm? Step, close, and again, close—yes, good. Alright, hip-wise, this is a wiggly one—”

“Oh, _a wiggly one,_ is that the technical term?” 

“Of course, you should know the jargon by now— hold on, that was a _whisk!”_

Crowley raised an eyebrow, half-in and half-out of position. “You know you taught me these yesterday, angel.”

Aziraphale had no memory of this. Good grief, what was happening to him?

“You _did_ cover these yesterday,” added Newt helpfully.

“I’m sorry— were you _here_ yesterday?” Aziraphale snapped. 

“Yeah, I mean, that’s how I know you covered them.”

“Newton,” he said a little desperately, _“please_ leave.”

The boy went without any further fuss. He would probably be walking on air for the rest of the day. Meanwhile, Aziraphale had to get to the laying-on-of-hands portion of rehearsals, which was rather more like walking on hot coals.

They got into starting position. Aziraphale put his hand on Crowley’s waist, feeling muscle and rib beneath the thin cotton of his vest. It was the first time they had touched since the bookshop, and the remembered weight and charge of that moment settled about Aziraphale like the expectation of thunder. He wondered if this felt as different to Crowley as it felt to him, if Crowley could sense, via the minute tremors in his limbs, the quickening of his pulse, the increase in his body temperature, that it had become impossible to touch him with the hands of his professional self. He had hoped he could keep his turmoil out of the studio, and had failed miserably. He had then hoped that, once they got into closed position, he could preserve the gap between them as a neutral zone— a place of work, as it had been with every other partner. Clearly he had failed in that too, because he had never been as aware of another partner’s body as he was of Crowley’s. 

Aziraphale tried to channel the spirit of a young suitor at a debutante ball, and imagined that they were being watched by an eagle-eyed and disapproving matronly figure. Maggie Smith and Judi Dench were out, as he suspected they were dirty old ladies, so in the end he found himself picturing Lady Catherine de Bourgh from the 1995 Pride and Prejudice.

“Start on your right foot,” said Aziraphale, visualising, with all his might, a sour-faced matriarch of the landed gentry. _Apparently_ —and Aziraphale was dismayed to discover the extent of his prior fugue state—he had taught whisks, walks, and _voltas,_ all of which Crowley demonstrated with precision and no small amount of smugness. The thing about Crowley, Aziraphale mused, was that for all he pretended to be a rebel, he really just wanted someone to tell him he was doing very well. This was possibly the worst thought he could have had at that precise moment, and he had to cover the complex string of impulses this set off in him with a cough.

“So, let’s— try the steps to the beat, shall we? One, two, three, and— _vem, magalenha_ _rojão,_ yes, good. You’ve gotten much quicker at finding your rhythm, you know.”

Crowley nodded, but with a small frown, as if the admission pained him. “I just sort of know where the beats are, now. Feels weird, like I’ve got a dowsing rod in my hips. Oh, speaking of picking things up quickly— we’re losing our afternoon tomorrow, aren’t we? You’ve got that thing. The botty thing.”

 _“Botafogo,_ yes,” Aziraphale was a bit vexed about the way they’d chosen to do the Challenge this year. In the past it would have been filmed long before now, so as not to interfere with rehearsals. The fact that each professional was given an allotted day to try their hand at it _mid-competition_ was another of Gabriel’s brilliant efforts to preserve the show’s secrets until they were ready to air. 

“So we’ll both be free, then? Lunch onwards.”

Aziraphale tried not to look _too_ excited at the prospect of being invited to lunch. They’d been to lunch before, for Heaven’s sake, it was nothing special, but this certainly wasn’t the time. “Now, Crowley— not that I don’t appreciate the idea, and there are a few places I’ve been wanting to try that I do think you’ll like, but I don’t— I don’t think it’s for the best right now, for a number of reasons. I’ll most likely not eat a thing all day, to be frank with you. The Challenge is not something to undertake on a fully-lined stomach; learned that lesson the hard way.”

Crowley had winced. 

“Er, actually… I wasn’t asking you.”

“You… you weren’t.”

“Nope,” Crowley said. “I’m supposed to be taking Eve out somewhere, as an apology for the disappearing act on Sunday night. Thought, since you were going to be busy anyway, you wouldn’t mind if I took off at midday to go have a drink with her. Seeing as I’ve already picked up a lot of the steps, I reckon I’ve earned an afternoon off, yeah? Also I’m genuinely worried she might damage me bodily if I stand her up again.”

“Right.” Aziraphale refused to be embarrassed. “Obviously.” Or, at least, he refused to be embarrassed right now. “Very good, yes, your afternoon tomorrow is yours. No qualms here.” He’d wait until later to be embarrassed, when he could really dedicate the time to working himself up into a stink over his presumption. “Now, can we please, _please,_ get back to dancing?”

* * *

* * *

“True or false: you fell off the skateboard and broke your collarbone.”

“False, it was a fracture, and I didn’t _fall,_ I moved rapidly from a vertical to a horizontal position. With consequences.”

“Hmmm. True or false: all the drinks on the show were real.”

 _“False,_ blimey, we’d be dead.”

“True or false: you and the guy playing Horatio...?” Eve waggled her eyebrows.

“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell,” he said, whilst also nodding, winking, and giving her an exaggerated thumbs up.

“I _knew it,_ oh my god, I need to find my old LJ account _immediately.”_

“Still can’t believe you used to fancy me. Well, I can, I mean, look at me.” He gave her his best grin, which he was fairly sure had featured prominently on the poster Eve had admitted to having above her bed. It might have lost its lustre after all those repeated viewings, though, because it just made her choke on a mouthful of beer.

“Yep. You were in the hallowed company of Angel from _Buffy,_ Gareth Gates, and Carlton from _Fresh Prince.”_

“Your taste is… abysmal.”

“I just love a short king.”

When Eve had invited him out for lunch, Crowley had assumed he’d turn up at an ultra-trendy spot somewhere in Central, where he and Eve would be paying thirty quid for a chunk of tofu the size of a postage stamp and precisely three leaves. When Eve had told him they’d be going to her local instead, he had been stricken with images of flat caps, dartboards, and an ill-timed quiz. Instead, two beers in, he’d found himself in a cozy booth in a conservatory so thick with plants that the afternoon sun coming through the roof stained the floorboards green. The whole place smelled orange; two trees had been coaxed to semi-maturity and flanked the entrance in huge terracotta pots. They were far from the rest of the punters, and it was blessedly quiet. So far the only thing unpleasant about the day had been finding out Eve was a craft beer wanker. She ordered them a pilsner called Third Alternative Rendezvous and a mezze platter that claimed to be for four people and which Eve claimed she’d prove wrong.

“So, backtracking for just a mo— is that why you came over during Launch Week?” Crowley sat back, swirling his beer just to annoy her. “Because you’re a _fan?”_

“Oh, fuck off, I’m not some creep who harasses celebs on the Tube,” said Eve. “I meet famous people all the time. I meet celebs I’ve fancied all the time. I’ve met _Idris Elba,_ we talked about pangolins and grime and I didn’t dribble _once._ That’s not why I came over.”

“Why did you, then?”

She eyed him shrewdly. “I mean, I was always going to say hi _eventually._ You weren’t high on my list, though. Somewhere below Harriet Dowling and above Ron Ormerod.”

“Harriet…?”

“She was at the party? Sexy lamp.”

“Gotcha.”

“Anyway, I thought you’d be a bit of a prick, to be honest. Never meet your heroes and that. But then I turned up first day, and I saw you at the buffet table, and I thought, ‘fuck me, he looks terrified’.” Eve paused, taking a sip of her drink. “You clearly had no idea what you were doing, or why you were there, or what was expected of you. So I went over, and I just… struck up a conversation about the first thing that came to my head. I thought I could be an ally, if you needed one. After we chatted, I wanted to be your friend.”

She shrugged. A leaf fluttered down from the greenery above her and caught in her hair. She brushed it away, smiling. “Sometimes it’s just that simple. You meet someone, and you like them, and you think, ‘I’d like for this relationship to continue’. It doesn’t have to be complicated. There doesn’t have to be, like. Subterfuge, or misdirection, or pretence, you get me? You can just say, hey, I like talking to you. Let’s get lunch.”

Crowley nodded. There was a weird lump in his throat. “So what I’m hearing,” he said, with some difficulty, “is that you just _really_ wanted an autograph.”

Eve threw her napkin at him.

The conversation moved on to lighter, easier topics, like religion and politics. Crowley was congratulating himself on managing to once again dodge genuine connection with another human being, when Eve said casually, “so, why were you?”

“Wossat?” 

“Why were you. Shitting yourself.” 

“Oh, ‘cause of Aziraphale,” he said without thinking, and then swore inwardly. Eve, who was proving herself to be wily and devious and very underhanded, leaned forward eagerly.

“So you _did_ know each other. Before the show. True or false?”

“London’s a small city.”

“Is it fuck. What’s the story, Anthony Crawly. Crowley.” She waved a dismissive hand at herself. “This is a safe space, you can admit you’ve got the hots for your partner. I’m not gonna be throwing stones, right?” 

Bloody hell. He may as well start putting up posters in bus shelters, just really get the word out. 

“I… might be bearing something of a torch, yes,” he allowed. Eve toasted an imaginary crowd at this, cheering the admission like he'd personally discovered the dodo was back, and better than ever.

“Tell me about it instantly,” she crowed. “Get soppy, go on, I live for it.”

“Fuck’s sake. I just. I dunno. Fuck off.” He necked his beer, wishing he had shots, or a cigarette, or a Vatican-grade grille to put between him and Eve. He’d already had to do this for Anathema. He should draft a manifesto to go with the posters. “He’s funny. And. I like his shape. He smells nice. He’s a bastard, which I’m unsurprisingly into. He makes me want to be better. At dancing,” he added hurriedly, “and he does my head in. In a good way. Bad way, too, but.”

 _“He does my head in, in a good way,”_ said Eve, dreamily. “Poetry there, from Anthony Jeremiah Crowley.”

“Shut it.”

“Will you ghostwrite my vows?”

“I’ll ghostwrite your eulogy,” he grumbled, which only made her laugh.

“See what _I’ve_ been trying to work out,” she waved gratefully at their server, who brought over another beer with a name like a defunct indie band, “is why you, Anthony Jefferson Crowley—”

“Right, _that_ one’s egregious—”

“—a person of, in my cultivated teenage opinion, _not inconsiderable charm,_ would not only _not_ hit that, but would deny all interest in hitting that. Despite the, uh, overwhelming evidence.”

Crowley made a noise like a pipe expanding. “Well, it’d be unprofessional, wouldn’t it,” he said. “Fine for you and Adam, sure, but with us _paving the way for gay rights,_ or whatever, it’s…. complicated. You _know_ what I mean. We really need to have a good clean run. Plus, we’d like to win. Then there’s the, the reputation of _Strictly—_ ”

“Bollocks,” said Eve decisively. “Absolute— pure, _pure_ bollocks, Crowley. D’you really expect me to believe you give a shit about the sanctity of _Strictly Come Dancing?”_

“No, but Aziraphale does.” He started to twist a beer mat between his fingers. “The show means a lot to him, y’know? It’s his job, and he’s proud of it, and I don’t wanna come in waving a great bloody flag with CROWLEY’S FEELINGS on it and fuck up this thing that’s important to him. I’m not that much of a selfish prick.” He tore the mat into little pieces and stared moodily into his beer. A very soft hand wearing very green nail varnish closed gently over his own.

“That’s pretty decent of you, Crowley,” Eve said, softly.

He shrugged. “Yeah, well.”

“It’s also _complete_ shite.”

What was it about him, Crowley wondered, that made him so platonically attracted to women who could see through his bullshit? Did he _enjoy_ being ruthlessly exposed in public settings? Did he have Mummy issues he wasn’t aware of? Surely his therapist would have informed him if that was the case, seeing as she was another woman who had no qualms about stripping him down to his emotional Y-fronts and chucking him into the cold.

“Fine, Jesus fuck,” he said, shaking his head as Eve did a tipsy victory dance across the table from him. He took a deep breath. “Okay. True. We did know each other, before this.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We were, uh. We were in this play together.”

“And?”

“And it went sour. Really sour.”

Eve leaned forward, practically out of her seat. “And?”

Crowley spread his hands, and blew out a puff of air that ruffled a nearby napkin. “Yep,” he said.

Eve waited, but Crowley didn’t say more.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“That can’t be it.”

“It is.” It wasn’t. 

“You shit.”

“Ask Anathema, if you’re so keen.”

“I did.”

“And?”

“And she doesn’t know anything either!” Now it was Crowley’s turn to laugh, despite himself. Eve started to laugh with him, drink and the absurdity of friendship giving them both a fit of giggles that quickly got out of hand.

“More drinks, please!” she gasped as she shooed him out of the booth, presumably to fulfil this request. “Crowley, no, wait, listen— listen, _‘I want to drink so much I speak in iambs. I want to be found in three days in the crawlspace of a sex shop. I want my body to be found so full of wine that I’m canonised as a saint.’_ What’s that from?”

“No idea.” 

“Okay, what about this: _‘I’M GOING TO BE THE MONARCH OF FUCKING!’"_

”Oh, that one’s easy. _Nanny McPhee.”_

* * *

“Alright,” said Aziraphale, staring into the bathroom mirror, “so you fancy him.”

His reflection shrugged, to show this wasn’t a big deal. Aziraphale was comforted by this. Bolstered. He went on.

“This happens all the time. All the time! Every day. Kings and beggars. Old and young. Dogs and cats— though, I suppose, not with each other. ” His reflection frowned. Aziraphale couldn’t blame him. “The point is that it’s not the end of the world, is it? It’s not even, really, all that terrible. Two grown men, two professional people, working closely together, sparking a bit. Big deal, as Gabriel would say. Hardly worth getting all worked up over!”

His reflection smiled, because he was the encouraging sort.

“And to be honest…” Aziraphale leaned in confidentially, “to be honest, at this point, it would be a mistake to spoil the dynamic, wouldn’t it? Since it’s playing so well to the public. The— the rapport. After all, we’ve already established he flirts with everyone. It would be noticeable if we stopped! In fact, our _entire_ trajectory could collapse. The show could lose viewers. We could be responsible for the fall of the BBC itself!”

His reflection was duly horrified at the idea that banter and sexual tension were the only things keeping the BBC together. 

“No, I believe it’s best for all involved if we remain professionally unprofessional, don’t you? We shan’t push boundaries, of course. But if we’re tossed the ball—the ball, in this case, being _coquetry_ —it seems the most prudent option would be to toss it back.”

The two of them thus agreed, Aziraphale nodded and rolled down his sleeves. 

“Do you know, I’ve always said that the monologue is an overused trope in stage plays,” mused Wensleydale, from the next sink over, “because no-one _actually_ talks to themselves, in real life.”

Both Aziraphales leapt about a foot.

“But you’ve proved me wrong. It turns out monologuing actually _is_ a naturalistic style of speech. I might be able to fit one in at the end of scene four.”

“What are you doing in here?” demanded Aziraphale, hand pressed to his chest, where his heart was hammering like billy-o.

“What am I doing in the gents of the BBC studio?”

“Yes!”

“Making notes,” said Wensleydale. “I’m a student of human behaviour. And I needed to see a man about a dog.”

“Well _go see him somewhere else!"_

* * *

“Er, ‘scuse me, _where_ is the pint I ordered?”

It had been Crowley’s round, and he’d decided it was time to stop pretending he cared about hops or malts or whatever the fuck Eve had spent nigh-on twenty minutes waxing lyrical to him about and indulge in the most expensive bottle of Viognier they had on hand.

“Stop moaning, you didn’t have to pay for it. Any road up, we’re doing it the right way round,” he wedged himself onto the bench next to her and poured her a somewhat generous glass. He then poured himself a completely selfish one. “Beer before wine and you'll feel fine; wine before beer and you'll feel queer. Or, well. Queer-er, in my case.”

“I think the amount we’ve drunk, anyone would feel queer,” Eve snorted. 

“And yet you remain _alarmingly_ heterosexual.”

“Me and about 95% of the population, unfortunately.”

Crowley wrinkled his nose. “That can’t possibly be right.”

“It’s true! It’s true!” Eve had already downed most of her glass. “I can count on one hand the number of queer people I knew b’fore I moved up here.”

“‘Up’ here? You’re not from further South than this, I’d know,” Crowley said, decisively. 

“No, ‘up’ cause like… the railways, right? The railways used to… something about the way the lines ran? They all run up to London.”

“Eve, don’t be ridiculous,” Crowley said, suddenly serious enough to catch her attention. “Railway lines run _flat._ Along the ground.”

She attempted to push him out of their booth, “You are the _worst_ , the complete and utter fuckin' _worst!_ You know exactly what I mean!”

Crowley laughed, catching up with her on the wine and pouring them both another. “But I’m right though, aren’t I? ‘Bout you.”

Eve winked, clinking her very-full glass against his and not seeming to care that plenty ended up all down her hand and on the table. “You might be. Come and have a go, then, if you think you’re hard enough. Where’m I from? Get within twenty miles and I’ll buy the next round.”

Crowley graciously decided to not point out that it would have been her round anyway, and leaned in. “You’re on. Any monologue you like, and I’ll try an’ guess before you’re done. When I get it right, you stop.”

“Monologue?” Eve rolled her eyes. “We’re not all trained thespians, y’know. Can’t all yank Richard the Third out of our arses at the drop of a hat.”

“I can see how that would be difficult. Bit pointy, as monarchs go. Okay then, what’s the naturist equivalent of a monologue?” He grinned.

“ _Naturalist_ , how many times,” she rolled her eyes, but took a deep breath and started prattling on about the nesting habits of gorillas, which didn’t sound very scientifically accurate to Crowley. 

“Burnley.”

Gorillas were bloody huge, and he was just meant to believe they got up a tree with a bunch of twigs and _perched_ there?

“Sheffield.”

Eve paused, took a drink, and continued on about the sodding gorillas with a hint of a smirk on her face. He was getting closer.

“Yorkshire?” 

“You can’t just say ‘Yorkshire’, that’s like saying ‘Wales’. Specifics, mate,” she prodded him in the side.

“Say ‘Yorkshire’ again.”

_“Yorkshire.”_

“Leeds! Somewhere around Leeds?”

Eve tipped her glass to him, and took a huge gulp. “Close enough. Just outside Leeds, yeah.”

Crowley leaned back, one hand over his heart, pretending to be scandalised. “A _Northerner,"_ he said darkly. “You think you know someone. Practically a tourist.”

“Oh come on, like anyone who lives in London is actually _from_ London,” she said, with the air of someone conceding defeat. “Only lived around Leeds for a few years when I was little, been here the rest of my life. Didn’t think I still had the accent.”

“I’ve got a good ear, and I’m a born mimic,” said Crowley. _“Love_ doing accents.”

“Go on, then. Do one.”

Crowley launched into the first one that came to his head, which was Vix’s flat Essex drawl. Eve clapped delightedly, and he shifted into Shadwell’s broad, if patchwork, Scottish burr. She started listing off various members of their esteemed company for him to try out, and he felt himself preening a little at how easily he could still manage to switch from Tracy’s lilting twang to Gabriel’s generic American arsehole.

“Do Aziraphale!”

“I’m trying,” Crowley said, automatically, and then attempted to cover up the slip by looking like he was very interested in his empty wine glass while Eve cackled her round, dirty laugh. “Shouldn’t you be getting me another drink? My spoils for winning the bet.”

Eve hummed happily, poking him in the cheekbone.

“Me and Adam made a bet. ‘Bout you.”

“You’ve told me this,” Crowley said, as Eve tucked her arm around his and sighed happily.

“I _love_ Adam.”

“You’ve also told me this. In fact, I think this is the _fifteenth_ time this arvo you’ve dumped this particular little nugget on me.”

“The thing about Adam,” Eve said, warming to her topic, “is that he’s like… a very handsome baby. No, that’s gross, _shut up._ I mean he’s like, he’s gentle and kind and everything about the world excites him. Like it’s all brand new. No object permanence.”

“Bet that’ll be fun when it comes to anniversaries,” Crowley muttered.

“And he’s an _excellent_ dancer, if you know what I mean,” she waggled her eyebrows. “Really good at… _dancing.”_

“D’you reckon Aziraphale’s good at dancing?” Crowley asked, before he could stop himself. “No, fuck, don’t answer that. Seriously, Eve, I mean it, do not— just pretend I meant _actual_ dancing. Christ, I’ve had too much already. Or possibly not enough.”

She stared to clamber over him to get out of the booth, practically honking with laughter the whole time. “Well if it’s _actual_ dancing you want to know about, there’s one way we can find out for sure in about an hour’s time. Whether Aziraphale or Adam is the _better dancer,”_ she said, trying for low and throaty but ending up sounding like she was auditioning for a bit part as a knock-off Darth Vader. “But we’ve got time to kill before then, and I owe you another drink. My round, my rules— cocktail time!”

“No, no, the idiom says absolutely nothing about cocktails for a reason, and that reason is it’s a _bad idea,”_ Crowley started to say, but if Eve was suggesting what he thought she might be suggesting vis-a-vis Aziraphale and dancing, what was one more bad idea to add to the tally? He wanted to see Aziraphale. He knew he wasn’t _supposed_ to, but he really really wanted to. He’d wanted to see Aziraphale all day. Not that hanging out with Eve wasn’t lovely, but he didn’t want to _dance_ with Eve, now did he? Crowley also sort of wanted to see the look on Eve’s face when Aziraphale proved himself a better dancer than Adam. _Actual_ dancing, of course, not— these metaphors were getting far too confused. More alcohol, _definitely_ time for more alcohol. Crowley pushed her bare foot out of his face—when had she taken her shoes off?—as she finished her scramble to exit the booth, and called after her as she padded over to the bar.

“I want something with a little frou-frou umbrella!”

* * *

Unless one was concerned about which was the fastest game bird in England, in possession of incredibly long fingernails, or the sort who trained tirelessly in speedy hot dog consumption, there wasn’t much reason for anyone sensible or professional to come into contact with _Guinness World Records._ Aziraphale considered himself this exact sort of sensible, professional person, having never seen the purpose in rushing a good meal or missing out on a manicure (though he had once won a pub quiz knowing about the fastest game bird in England, so perhaps it wasn’t all tosh). It was rather vexing, then, that there were two times a year in which _Guinness World Records_ made itself a rather large part of his life. The more vexing of the two was at Christmastime when his bookshop would become inundated with frantic parents who had left it too late to buy the unerringly popular book of records from one of the bigger chain bookstores. Aziraphale tried his hardest every year to make the shop look, from first glance, like the _exact opposite_ of the sort of place that would sell novelty books with holographic covers, designed to be perused once excitedly on Christmas morning and dumped in a charity shop come January, but one could never underestimate the lengths a desperate parent will go to.

The second instance of his life colliding with _Guinness World Records_ was entirely professional, though its sensibility could be hotly contested. The Botafogo Challenge was something the _Strictly_ cast did every year. Technically, it was called _The Guinness World Records Strictly Pro Challenge_ , which was a name Aziraphale suspected Michael had come up with and which no-one actually used. Each professional took a turn in front of three judges to perform as many instances of the classic samba step as possible. It necessitated a clear step across to the side, and then a replacement of weight, repeated ad nauseam— or, rather, until your time was up.

It was basically a cross, ball, change, only you did it _very_ quickly.

Normally Aziraphale wasn’t actually fussed about the challenge. When, upon sitting down to get his results the very first year it was introduced to the show, it was revealed to him how many disqualified steps the judges saw fit to strike him with, he decided the lot of them had no clue what they were talking about and he would happily go about his year without thinking on it further. This year, however, it felt strangely well-timed. He needed to be able to do something well, something he personally could be _measured_ on, something that would remind him he was the consummate professional and not purely a bundle of misplaced wants and desires getting in the way of a spot of good footwork. Crowley wouldn’t be here for the challenge, and not just because he was off getting sozzled with Eve. Nobody was allowed on set for this save for the crew, himself, and the three judges. This year Alex Simon Stokes had decided he wanted to be on the judging panel rather than Cressida, so he was settled in a very tall chair alongside Sarah—a _Strictly_ champion who was no longer on the show, having won once and gotten out onto bigger and better things—and Giles Baddicombe, the _Guinness World Records_ adjudicator. The challenge was always filmed in a closet set, a smaller studio that was draped in heaps of black curtains around the edges and had strange neon lights dotted about the place in an attempt to make watching someone repeatedly do the same thing for half a minute while becoming increasingly sweaty a little more sexy for the viewing public.

“Aziraphale, welcome,” Alex said, cameras already rolling as he presented himself in front of them. “Feeling confident this year, are we? Happy little coincidence, that you scheduled your samba routine for the same week as your go at the challenge. People might say you’d planned this. Very smart of you, if you did.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny,” he laughed, and all the judges laughed, and Aziraphale tried not to think about how, the way his mind was churning at the moment, he wasn’t sure he could plan what he was having for _dinner_ that day— never mind a complex dance-based scheme. _Concentrate, dear boy,_ he chastised himself.

“Well, you know the rules. Thirty seconds, as many botafogo steps as you can, up on the stage when you’re ready. Good luck.”

Aziraphale took a steadying breath, flexed his ankles, and popped himself up onto the raised little plinth. He scuffed his feet a few times, before nodding to the judges. Baddicombe raised his hand to signal he should prepare himself.

“For the record!” Baddicombe boomed, clearly a man enamoured with the sort of mundane power that came from wielding a stopwatch.

“Three…” 

Aziraphale shook out his wrists.

“...two…”

He straightened his bowtie.

“...one…”

He was a professional dancer, and he was good at this, and this year he was going to absolutely bloody _smash_ it.

_“Go!”_

Aziraphale didn’t move. The seconds ticked by, and he still didn’t move. He could see, out of the corner of his eye, Alex, Sarah and Giles exchanging worried glances, but he only saw this out of the corner because the _rest_ of his eyes were occupied by a disaster in the making. There, peeking out from one of the swathes of curtains at the back of the studio, unseen by the camera operators and boom holders, were Crowley and Eve. They both had identical grins on their faces, thumbs held aloft and mouthing _“GOOD LUCK!”_ exaggeratedly.

Crowley had a cocktail umbrella tucked behind his ear.

“Cut, cut for goodness’ sake. Aziraphale, is everything alright?” Alex said, suddenly blocking Aziraphale’s field of vision. “What is it?”

He started to follow Aziraphale’s line of sight—where it was still glued, stupefied, to the twin figures of Eve and Crowley—and Aziraphale let out a panicked cry that caused Alex to spin back to him.

 _“No!_ I mean, yes, of course! Of course everything is alright, hahaha, why would you even ask such a thing? Just, erm,” he tried very hard to think of something to say, other than what was currently running through his mind, which was a rousing cry of _he’s behind you!_ “Just realised I forgot to pop to the loo! I hardly think Mr Baddicombe would want me to perform under the weight of a full bladder.”

“A... full bladder.” Alex was giving him the sort of look he usually reserved for dancers who mixed up their whisks and their weaves.

“Well, doesn’t seem very _sporting_ , does it?” Aziraphale kept babbling, slowly edging off the stage and making sure to turn his body so that everyone’s eyes were on him and Eve and Crowley would not be spotted. “None of the other contestants were plagued with the desire to— well, _you know,_ whilst attempting the challenge. It seems to rather make a mockery of the entire thing, to have such differing conditions from one contestant to the next. Wouldn’t you agree, Mr Baddicombe?”

Giles Baddicombe—who had obviously not expected to be required for much other than click his stopwatch and help himself to the free tea, coffee and biscuits—tried to look authoritative.

“Oh yes, I agree wholeheartedly with Mr Fell,” he said, nodding seriously at Alex. “We here at _Guinness World Records_ pride ourselves on our long-standing traditions of fairness and equality when it comes to how our records are set. I must insist Mr Fell be allowed to relieve himself, or else we shall have to bring in the other professionals again and make them re-attempt the challenge, with equally full bladders.”

Aziraphale stared at him, as did Alex Simon Stokes. As did everyone else in the room. Though it hadn’t helped him win any points with the judges last week, Aziraphale’s lifelong love of close-up magic meant he knew when to take advantage of the perfect distraction.

“Right! Exactly! I’ll just, er, shall I?” Aziraphale dashed to the back of the room and grabbed Eve and Crowley, yanking them both back behind the curtain with him. 

_“What are you doing here?”_ he hissed, holding them both by the wrists still.

“What do you mean, what are we doing here? What are _you_ doing here?” Crowley asked, having the gall to look confused by this turn of events. “Y’meant to be up on that stage, cutting a rug. Hang on, why _do_ they call it cutting a rug?”

“Crowley—”

“Seems a bit dangerous, attacking the soft furnishings with scissors while you’re doing a Lindy Hop. Especially that people did it enough they made a whole saying out of it! Who dances with scissors on hand, anyway?”

Aziraphale—knowing if he were also inebriated he’d very much enjoy delving into this line of thought, but he was currently short on time and blood alcohol content—decided he would have to write Crowley off as a lost cause, and turned to Eve with a pleading expression. Good old reliable Eve, who he knew to be a paragon of good sense, and insight, and intelligence.

“I thought you had to take a piss?” Eve said, brow wrinkling.

_Ah._

“Would it be too much for me to hope that nobody saw you on your way in here? The amount of trouble the two of you will be in if anyone did simply doesn’t bear thinking about.” Aziraphale wasn’t sure _how_ they could have snuck in undetected. Now that he was in close quarters, they smelt rather akin to the gin distillery he’d once had the unfortunate luck to go on a blind date to. The man he had been set up with was a total boor, who wouldn’t stop loudly proclaiming that gin was a drink for _children and sissies,_ whilst downing his own _and_ Aziraphale’s flights. At least neither of them smelt like the man himself. _Thank Heaven for small mercies_ , Aziraphale thought.

“The thing is…” Crowley grinned, leaning in and clearly doing that thing where he thought he was making his voice low and sultry but was actually sort of growling. This made it no less appealing to Aziraphale, but that was neither here nor there at the moment. “The thing _is,_ angel, I am _really_ good at getting into trouble.”

“You’re going to get all _three_ of us into trouble, Crowley, _honestly_ ,” Aziraphale sighed, trying his best to sound miffed. He knew he should be furious about this, absolutely stotting mad, completely beside himself with rage. What Crowley and Eve had done here was unprofessional, and potentially embarrassing should they be caught out, and they were lucky Aziraphale hadn’t started the attempt before catching sight of them or else he really _would_ have been quite cross, but he was on the verge of finding the whole thing thoroughly amusing instead. _This is simply unacceptable,_ Aziraphale thought, but he wasn’t certain if he meant the whole situation or just his own indecipherable reaction. He started to tug them towards the edge of the curtain, where the closed door to the studio was waiting.

“Oh, what, don’t I get to watch you?” Crowley asked, all heightened indignation. At least he was still whispering, following the pace Aziraphale had set for the conversation. “Charming! Came all this way down here—had to stop so Eve could be sick out the door of the taxi, by the way—came _all the way down here_ to cheer you on, and now you’re kicking me out? Eve got to watch Adam!”

“Eve got to watch Adam because— because she was not drunk as a skunk, and respectfully sat to one side the entire time.”

“Did you?” Crowley asked Eve, sounding doubtful.

“Quiet as a… very quiet… thing. Why can’t I remember what animal is quiet? Talk about them enough. Little, little things, _love_ cheese...” Eve said, then exclaimed at a volume louder than one attempting to hide behind a curtain might think was sensible, were they in full possession of their faculties, _“A mouse!”_

Thankfully this outburst came as Aziraphale shoved her through the door, and he slammed it shut behind the three of them. He looked around for an ally to help him, but found none. Even the Sergeant—who usually took up the guard post outside the studio when the challenge was on as though Churchill, Asquith and Hopkins were holding a meeting inside—was nowhere to be seen.

“I won’t be able to escort you all the way to the studio entrance,” Aziraphale said, fiddling with his pinky ring at the thought of abandoning them to the fates, and the frivolous twists and turns of the BBC corridors. “Will you, ah, will you be alright by yourselves?”

Crowley frowned. Aziraphale kept his expression neutral. Crowley began to let the frown slip into a pout, and added in his patented pleading-eyes-over-the-top-of-the-sunglasses look. It was, unfortunately, very effective, and made Aziraphale realise too late that he hadn’t put the handbrake on. He felt himself involuntarily start to smile, and had to look away.

“Aziraphale, do you actually want me to go?”

Ah, there was the rub.

“Yes,” Aziraphale lied. “Yes, Crowley, I would like it very much if you went now. I would like you to go home, and get some rest, and let me stay here to attempt to reclaim _some_ dignity.”

It wasn’t an _entire_ untruth. He really _did_ want Crowley to go, because of the recklessness of showing up to work pickled, and the consequences that could bring. If Crowley had just done the sensible thing, and shown up sober— sat there as quiet as a little, little thing that loved cheese, then perhaps it would have been _nice_ to have him there. _That_ was the Crowley Aziraphale wished was here, the Crowley that Aziraphale would have entreated to stay. Not this decade-old echo of a bygone work day, much more pleasant but no less drunk. No, this sort of behaviour couldn’t be rewarded or encouraged. 

“S’not fair, though,” Crowley grumbled, scuffing at the floor like a naughty school child with his heel. “Adam had someone cheering him on. Quietly, yeah, but… oh! _Oh!”_

Crowley yanked his wrist out of Aziraphale’s hold and plucked the cocktail umbrella from behind his ear, bringing it up to his face. A look of intense concentration took over him as he reached up and into the umbrella, pulling it shut in minute increments. 

“He’s already broken four on the way over here,” Eve informed Aziraphale, back to a stage-whisper. Aziraphale wondered where he’d been keeping the others, seeing as he only had two ears.

“Here,” Crowley announced, tucking the closed cocktail umbrella into the breast pocket of Aziraphale’s waistcoat, his hand patting it where it sat over and over, until it became more of a soft caress. “Good luck charm, innit.”

Aziraphale looked down at it, and Crowley’s hand, and for a mad moment opened his mouth without a single solitary clue as to what might come out of it, but that was the instant in which Sergeant Shadwell appeared— bursting onto the scene like the _Flying Scotsman_ and as just full of steam.

“Whit the devil is afoot here?” He demanded, looking from Crowley, who was still distantly rubbing Aziraphale’s chest, to Aziraphale, who just knew he would be turning a rather unfetching shade of pink, to Eve, who was turning an even more unfetching shade of green.

“Ah, Shadwell, _excellent._ Just in the nick of time!” Aziraphale hurried him over with a gesture, trying to think about what would move Shadwell most to help him. “These two have possibly encountered some sort of… cursed… er, curse. Some sort of curse! Yes, that’s it. They must be removed from the premises immediately and safely delivered to their homes so that they can wait out the effects of the, the, the curse.”

Shadwell looked at Eve and Crowley, who were now holding each other up.

“Ye sure about that? They just look drunk tae me.”

Aziraphale took a deep breath and gathered up all the reserves of patience and strength he had left.

“Well, yes, that’s quite possible as well. Will you just please make sure they get out of the building without anyone seeing them? As a favour, for me. Tracy’s _very good_ friend,” he said, trying to make sure his implication landed firmly on the side of _so I shall badmouth you to her if you refuse me this favour,_ and not _all your worst fears are true, and she and I have been making the beast with two backs all along!_

Shadwell ruminated on this, then nodded. “Aye sir, I’ll about do it. Fer the honour of my lady, an' the honour of this great studio.”

“Wonderful,” Aziraphale sighed, before thrusting Eve and Crowley at him. “They’re all yours, and please watch out for Ms Gardener— it appears her curse was _particularly_ potent.”

“I only had four!” She protested. Crowley snorted, turning to Aziraphale and holding up six fingers while he mouthed _“eight, angel, she had eight”._ Aziraphale wanted to find it in himself to dismiss these as the actions of a drunken loon, but his wretched body betrayed him once more and he _giggled,_ which caused Crowley to wink at him. Most unfair.

“Text me, won’t you! When you’re both home safely!” Aziraphale called after them as Shadwell shuffled them off down the corridor, but if they heard him they gave no affirmative indication. He sighed, shook out his head and his hands, and gave his cheeks a few sharp slaps to centre himself as he opened the door to the studio.

And walked straight into Alex Simon Stokes.

“We were beginning to think you’d fallen in,” Alex said, his usual sardonic edge laced with humour. “Thought I’d come check on you.”

“Ah, yes, well…” Aziraphale fumbled, wondering how much Alex had heard.

“Very deftly handled,” Alex said.

“What was?” Aziraphale asked, the picture of innocence, if the picture of innocence had a cocktail umbrella sticking out of his pocket where none had been before.

“Quite,” Alex smirked, and moved aside to let him into the studio.

“Mr Fell!” Baddicombe beamed at him, stopwatch held aloft. “All empty, I presume? Excellent, excellent. Perhaps the second time will be the charm, eh?”

Aziraphale smiled as he took up the place on the podium, and tucked the cocktail umbrella a little further into his pocket. 

“Let’s find out, shall we?”

* * *

* * *

His living room was warm and familiar and Aziraphale fell into it like a child falling into the arms of its mother. He was exhausted. Not only had he had a rather trying day at work— _to say the least—_ but he had forgotten that he’d left the bookshop in disarray. The night before he had started the process of clearing up some of the more topple-prone piles of books in earnest, to prepare for he and Crowley’s eventual rehearsals, but had bitten off more than he could chew and retired to bed before he could choke on it. It would have to wait another day. He managed to shuck off his jacket, kick off his shoes, and use the last reserves of energy to pour himself a drink before he melted into the leather embrace of his beloved armchair. He had a message from Eve, which she appeared to have written as though Aziraphale were a distant acquaintance separated by too many miles for a carriage to traverse: 

> [ **06:24PM** ] My dearest airphale ,  
> U said to txt you when i am home and so i have endeavoured rdo as you asked if me. I can only give my deepset and most sincere apologie s for the untucked interuuton if you’re hoppinf dance . I hope you can find it in your <£ to forgive me love eve xxxxxxxxxx 

Then a couple of texts from Adam,

> [ **06:30PM** ] Hey Az, I’m sure Eve will be dead embarrassed when she sobers up lol but thanks for looking after her!!
> 
> [ **09:46PM** ] Wait it was hard to understand when she first got in but shes saying she crashed your botafogo???? Omg mate i’m so sorry

Aziraphale groaned, and tapped out a kind and disingenuous text entreating him not to trouble himself or Eve, no harm done, what are they like etc etc. One came back from Adam almost immediately.

> [ **10:17PM** ] Ok mate no worries I’ve made her some tea and toast and we’ve put on Planet Earth to sober up. She likes to mute it and do the narration herself its so cute

_I should like to give Crowley tea and some toast,_ thought Aziraphale longingly, _after I’ve wrung his scraggy neck._

> [ **10:18PM** ] Also she wants to know if yr umbrella got home safe?? Not sure what that means haha x 

Aziraphale’s hand drifted to his breast pocket and the small, yellow umbrella. He remembered the look of intense concentration on Crowley’s face as he handed it to him, and felt a smile tug at his lips.

 _None of that,_ he admonished himself. _We are ticked off._

He unfolded the umbrella and twirled it idly. Then he put it in his hair, where it slid out immediately. He felt a disproportionate panic as it tumbled to the ground, and flung himself sideways like a goalie to catch it in the cage of his hand. Finally, he put it in his drink. Though this was the intended purpose of the object, it still looked sad and incongruous in a glass of no-nonsense scotch.

 _There is a metaphor here,_ he thought, _but I am choosing not to confront it._

Another message, this time from Crowley.

> [ **10:21PM** ] im home

Nothing else. Aziraphale sighed. Perhaps it was too much to hope for an apology, pickled as Crowley was. He had a sudden mental image of him collapsed on the sofa, limbs akimbo, watching the room spin. _I shan’t feel sorry for him,_ he insisted. _He deserves it. Catch me holding back his hair while he hunches over a toilet bowl, the intemperate lush._

> [ **10:24PM** ] sorry  
> [ **10:24PM** ] abt yr BOGOF thing i mena  
> [ **10:25PM** ] didnt mean 2 vilate sanctity of Guinness  
> [ **10:25PM** ] or upset u

Aziraphale began to type out a response, only for the bubbles to appear below Crowley’s last message. He’d forgotten about Crowley’s habit of sending each message as soon as it occurred to him, rather than attempting to construct a coherent missive. Another deeply irritating thing about him, Aziraphale thought triumphantly. He had to keep these in mind. Perhaps he should make a list to look at whenever he felt himself wavering. 

> [ **10:27PM** ] bet u did gr8 tho ur very fast   
> [ **10:27PM** ] fastest foot i n the West End thats u

Oh dear. That was rather sweet, though. 

> [ **10:28PM** ] ur a good dancer   
> [ **10:28PM** ] better n adam i reckon  
> [ **10:28PM** ] i hope  
> [ **10:30PM** ] maybe well find out

Aziraphale frowned. He should hope they _would_ find out. Aziraphale fully meant for them to be in the finale with their friends and colleagues, and it was a little worrying to consider Crowley might not have the same end goal in mind.

Crowley began to type something else, then stopped. The bubbles did their trick of disappearing and reappearing, and Aziraphale took the opportunity to get up and make himself another drink— gently removing the cocktail umbrella lest he spill something on it—whilst he waited for the essay Crowley was constructing.

When he next looked at the phone, he had a new message— not from Crowley, but from Eve. 

It said _“youre welcome ;)”_

She had also sent him a picture of Crowley.

Aziraphale’s mouth went dry. The picture had been taken in Tracy’s dressing room—he recognised the drapes—by Crowley himself, pointing his phone camera at the mirror. He was modelling his samba dress for that week. The top was _Strictly's_ usual favourite— a sheer material with flesh panelling underneath so nothing untoward was revealed, but that somehow didn't seem to matter when it was stretched so taut across Crowley's chest, a few well-placed embroidered sequin chains cording around his torso. It only had one sleeve, and it was rather incredible to see someone upon whom this effect looked _good,_ unlike poor Jess who seemed determined to trot the look out week after week to the appreciation of absolutely no-one. The photo only showed the front of the garment but Aziraphale knew, as was Tracy's preference for this particular style, it would be backless. The skirt frothed in layers of red and black, as was typical for a samba costume, but the part that was muddling up the shelves in Aziraphale’s brain was the slit up the left side. It ran so high that it exposed the entire expanse of Crowley’s leg, ankle to calf to thigh, stopping just below his hip. 

“Heavens to Betsy,” Aziraphale whispered faintly; a phrase that he was sure he had never used in his life until that moment.

Though the first offence was that Crowley looked good, the second was that he clearly knew it. The expression on his face was knowing and wicked in a way that made Aziraphale think of dark corners and hotel rooms and, for some reason, the work of Raymond Carver.

> [ **10:37PM** ] What do u think ;0 
> 
>   
> I think it’s Strictly Come Dancing, not Strictly Come Hither [ **10:39PM** ]
> 
> [ **10:39PM** ] LMAO

Distressed, Aziraphale put down the phone, picked it up again, stared at the picture of Crowley, admonished himself for staring at the picture of Crowley, considered changing his name and career and beginning a new life in the south of France, and gulped down his drink. The phone pinged. Crowley had finished his opus. 

> [ **10:45PM** ] wuu2

Aziraphale stared at it for several long moments, feeling as if he was going mad. That made no sense whatsoever, but then again, Crowley was tight as a boiled owl.

> [ **10:45PM** ] sry forgot u dont know text words  
> [ **10:45PM** ] SLAND  
> [ **10:45PM** ] slang*  
> [ **10:46PM** ] meant 2 say  
> [ **10:46PM** ] what r u up to   
> [ **10:48PM** ] right now

He sat back and rubbed his hands over his face. Something about that felt loaded. Aziraphale felt a prickling at the back of his neck; not unpleasant, but instinctive. He wasn’t sure how to respond; the picture had rather discombobulated him. 

He began to type out a message, belatedly realising that if Crowley was looking at his phone he would both know that Aziraphale had seen the messages _and_ know he was formulating a response. He stopped. This whole instant messaging lark was far too stressful. He longed for the days when one could spend hours composing letters, pages of beautiful, well-constructed prose, worthy of publication. No-one was going to put together a coffee table book entitled “Text Messages of Note”, now, were they? Even emails one could take one’s time over. Nora Ephron wrote a whole film about it. 

No, he needed time to think things through. Figure out what to say. He downed his drink and grabbed a pen and paper.

 _Dear Crowley,_ he wrote, then scribbled it out.

> _Glad you’ve gotten home safely,_

Inane. 

> _Don’t worry about the botafogo. I think I did rather well,_

Inane, and, in addition, traitorous, as he was supposed to still be angry at him. He’d forgotten that bit. Aziraphale groaned, and focussed solely on answering the last message Crowley had sent instead. _What are you doing._ Simple. Direct.

So why was it so hard to answer?

> _Drinking scotch and reading your messages._

Best not to mention the scotch. It reminded him too much of the rooftop. 

> _I’m catching up on messages. I just received one from Eve, containing a picture of you in your costume for this week. You look lovely._

Lovely was absolutely not the word to describe it. And he was loathe to mention the dress; it felt private, despite the fact that in a few days several million people would see him in it.

> _Thinking of you._

Christ, no. Too honest.

Suddenly Aziraphale realised why those words had sounded so loaded. He remembered Tracy during her foray into the rocky terrain of internet dating, showing him the kinds of messages she was sent. From the boring _“hi”_ to the badly lit photo of a penis to the kinds of messages he thought were bland but which, according to Tracy, contained all sorts of hidden meanings— the number of y’s at the end of _“hey”_ denoted how lascivious someone felt at the time, for example, and the benign phrase _“haha then what"_ had mysterious motives. But he also remembered, belatedly, how many of the filthy messages had begun with a completely innocuous _“what are you doing”_.

Good Lord, was Crowley trying to _sext_ him?

Aziraphale turned to a fresh sheet of paper, mind awhirl. There was no way of knowing. There were too many variables in play. He needed to come up with a similarly opaque response, the platonic ideal of a text.

An hour and several fortifying cups of tea later, Aziraphale sat back, utterly overwhelmed. On the wall in front of him were stuck dozens of different responses, from the admonishing ( _“Considering the unprofessionalism you displayed today”_ ) to the searingly honest ( _"_ _Holding the umbrella you gave me and wondering what is going on between us”_ ), to the downright filthy ( _"Looking at your picture and thinking of how much I wish to—”_ ). None of them were right. It was getting late, and the honest and vulnerable ones were looking more and more attractive, and he could not cope with this right now. He needed clarity. He needed space. He needed a good night’s sleep.

He looked at his phone, considered telling Crowley goodnight, and then put his phone in the bread bin. 

Before he went to bed, however, he stuck the little umbrella in Anathema II’s plant pot. Just to give her some cheer. 

* * *

Crowley was late to rehearsal.

This was the first time it had happened in a very, _very_ long time, and he was trying to look as though he wasn’t having a mini panic attack about it. Totally fine, absolutely normal— he’d _meant_ to sleep in after lying awake until an ungodly hour, still half drunk, waiting for Aziraphale to text him back after he’d made a tit of himself. Completely intentional. Crowley usually held no truck with the withering gaze of a father figure, but as he was buzzed into the studio Geoff managed to imbue so much _fond_ _disappointment_ into the look he shot him that it was mildly sickening. Or that may have been the residuals of his hangover, who was to say. Crowley held up the takeaway cups, trying to express without words that _see, I can do something right_ , but Geoff would not be moved.

“You’re breaking my heart, Geoff!” Crowley yelled down the corridor after he was a fair distance away. 

“Married men, Crowley? I didn’t know that was your type.”

Ugh, _Sable_. Could this day get any better.

“Lot about me you don’t know, mate. Would you mind? Trying to get to my studio, I’m a bit—”

“Late, yes,” Sable fucking _tsked_ at him, wagging a finger back and forth like the world’s most infuriating metronome. “I hope you and Ms Gardener had a pleasant enough evening of it, all things considered.”

Crowley paused in his efforts to push past him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing! Nothing,” Sable said, spreading his hands wide. “I just happened to see you on your way out of the studios yesterday afternoon. You both looked very—how do you Brits put this?— _mortal?”_

“It’s ‘mortalled’, and we weren’t, and anyone who says otherwise is a liar,” Crowley said, still too groggy to worry about whether or not he was laying it on a bit thick.

“My mistake, then,” Sable grinned, who apparently _never_ worried about laying it on a bit thick. “I’ll let you get to your rehearsal, shall I? I’m sure your partner is most anxious for your arrival.”

“Yep, alright. _Wonderful_ talking to you, Sable, as always,” Crowley squeezed past him, and was too busy going over that thoroughly weird interaction to remember to be nervous about facing Aziraphale until he was inside and face to face with the man himself.

“Right, before you yell at me—and you can, you can _absolutely_ yell at me, I deserve it—let me give you your gifts, yeah?” He pulled out the bag of pastries from where they’d been under his arm. “Er, might have gotten a little crushed in my armpit, but, they weren’t in there for long, I swear, just while I had to navigate the security gate, so. Oh, and this! Here, take this,” Crowley handed over the takeout cup, looking firmly at Aziraphale’s hand as it wrapped around it and not making eye contact just yet. He turned away, dumping his jacket and bag and trying to figure out if the room was spinning because of his hangover or his heartbeat.

When Aziraphale finally spoke up, it was in a steady, inscrutable tone.

“Crowley, this is just— hot water?”

“Oh yeah,” Crowley muttered, tying his hair back once he was sure the motion required wasn’t going to cause a reappearance of the toast he’d forced down for breakfast. “Don’t think I didn’t notice how many full cups of tea you’ve abandoned by the walls of this studio, like a mother leaving a kid on the steps of the orphanage with a label saying _‘Twinings’_ hanging round their chubby little wrist. You _hate_ the tea from the cart, don’t you?”

“Hate is quite a strong word.” Aziraphale sounded guilty. 

“And you just kept letting me buy it for you, like a complete and utter chump—”

“Hold on—”

“And you never thought to say, _oh, Crowley my dear fellow, I actually despise Twinings, and most supermarket shelf tea blends, and carry my own supply with me at all times in case I am overwhelmed with the need for tea and cannot trust anyone else to get me that which I desire.”_

“Oh, come now, Crowley. You’re not playing fair.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow, finally turning back to face him. “Do you, or do you not, have a teabag in the pocket of your jacket at this very moment?”

Aziraphale, flushed, opened his mouth to protest, then snapped it shut a little too quickly.

“That’s what I thought. So, hot water. You’re welcome.”

The two of them lapsed into an uncomfortably comfortable silence. Crowley knew he’d semi-apologised over text last night, and he’d sort-of apologised again here, with the tea thing, in his own naturally charming way. He just hoped Aziraphale didn’t _actually_ want him to say sorry out loud, because he’d practiced a few times in the back of the cab on the way over and from the way the driver had rolled up the partition between them he was pretty sure it was not his best work.

“Well…” Aziraphale seemed very interested at staring into his cup of hot water, the steam colouring his cheeks nicely. If he was about to tell Crowley he’d gotten this wrong too, he was going to lock himself on the roof on _purpose_ as a political protest until Anathema came back and helped him make sense of his life once more. “Thank you.”

“I— yeah. Sure. You’re welcome.”

“Yes, you said that already,” Aziraphale said, rooting around in his jacket and murmuring a soft _“ah, there’s the bugger”_ when he discovered his stashed teabag. Crowley wasn’t sure what he would have done if it hadn’t been there this morning. All his suffering was worth it, watching the way Aziraphale clearly savoured the scent of the steeping tea. Why had he gone all those weeks drinking the shite Crowley brought him without a word? Granted, it was the sort of daft shit Crowley himself would have done, but Aziraphale had no hang-ups about letting people know they’d gotten his order wrong.

“Seeing as you were _so incredibly keen_ to watch a botafogo in action yesterday,” Aziraphale interrupted his train of thought as he set his tea off to one side, “why don’t we start today’s rehearsal with those again?”

He performed a repeat demonstration. Crowley watched his feet, bemused and grudgingly impressed, though he’d never let Aziraphale know it. “Is that really all it is? You just hop about?”

“‘Yes, you know this. I know you know this. I already _taught_ you this. Don’t tell me one day off has caused you to backslide into total dance novice territory?”

“And they’re going to give you a _Guinness World Record_ for it?”

“Well, I won’t know until next week if I’ve beaten the record,” huffed Aziraphale. “But, just between us, I think I have an _excellent_ chance this year.”

“Oh yeah?” Crowley asked, getting into position. “And why’s that?”

“I was just feeling particularly lucky, I suppose.”

Aziraphale’s tone was still disaffected and casual, but—as though he couldn’t help himself—the second he was finished talking he did that coy little smile that would not only make butter melt, but would probably be responsible for a global heatwave one of these days if Crowley’s reaction to it was anything to go by. In that one blessed moment Crowley knew he was forgiven all his trespasses.

“Well, I reckon I could take you on.” He sniffed, feigning cool disinterest. 

“Oh yes, I’m sure in your _condition_ this morning, a quick, bobbing motion from foot-to-foot is just what you need,” Aziraphale said, and the bastard was grinning. 

“Right, I really am going to try and beat you now. Come on, how many do you reckon you did?”

Aziraphale told him the number, and Crowley felt himself get a little clammier and paler with absolutely no help from the poison he’d so willingly ingested yesterday. The number was much, much higher than he’d thought, but he couldn’t back down now _._ They faced each other, Aziraphale asked Alexa to set a timer, and off they went. 

“I’m catching up to you, I know I am,” Crowley said, breathlessly. He had tripped over his feet _more_ than once, and had basically been cycling through all the most creative swears he’d learned as a lad the entire time.

Aziraphale, who had barely broken a sweat, nodded. “Yes, you’ll be able to do three in a row any day now.”

“Three in a— oi!”

They both fell out of step as they started laughing, and Crowley felt absolute sheer bloody _relief_ flood through his body as he went to get his heels out so that they could begin rehearsals in earnest. They’d actually been doing really well at the dancing stuff this week, despite the rocky start with Aziraphale being all distant and scatterbrained. Their progress was probably why Aziraphale seemed willing to move on past the somewhat awkwardness of the day before. Forgive and forget yadda yadda, they were good at that, weren’t they? Especially the ‘forget’ bit. But Crowley didn’t want to test the limits of Aziraphale’s forgiveness and—besides all that—he actually wanted to live up to their potential this week.

“Do you know,” Crowley started, as he fastened the fiddly little buckles, “Eve tried to tell me when she was off her face yesterday that gorillas build _nests?_ Would be a bit embarrassing for her, if it got out she was going around confusing birds and gorillas in her downtime.”

“Well… they do. Build nests, I mean.” Aziraphale said.

“How, how can you _possibly_ know that?” Crowley smirked, “Do you dance professionally, own a bookshop, and somehow manage to be a naturist at the same time?”

“Naturalist.”

This joke seemed a lot more funny when it was done at Eve’s expense. Crowley hid the blush he felt creeping up to his ears and resolutely didn’t look at his partner.

“Well, if you wanna get pedantic about it.”

“I can’t confess to belong to the profession, no,” Aziraphale paused, looking contemplative. “I watch a lot of documentaries, however, and I _happen_ to know from a particularly informative one that gorillas do, in fact, nest.”

Crowley scoffed, rolling up to his feet on one fluid motion. He’d almost decided to let the whole thing lie, when a thought occurred to him just as Aziraphale’s hand found its position on his waist.

“And who, may I ask, did the speaking bits on this fascinating little nesting-gorilla documentary you watched? Someone we know, is it?”

His partner didn’t respond, but Crowley knew the truth. Aziraphale’s sudden silence and reddening face were all the confirmation he needed.

* * *

* * *

The word _“cut”_ was barely out of the director’s mouth before Gabriel appeared at Aziraphale’s side, unfairly posed, poised and pristine amongst the throng of perspiring, panting and thoroughly _pooped_ dancers.

“There they are! My samba squad! Mind if I borrow the ol’ partner for a second, Tony? Thanks, buddy, much appreciated!” He boomed, grabbing Aziraphale around the shoulders and sweeping him away before Crowley had any chance whatsoever to respond. 

“Gabriel,” Aziraphale said, feeling more and more unsettled as they marched out of the ballroom studio and into the strip-lit backstage corridors. “To what do I owe the pleasure? I didn’t think you actually stayed back to watch the Live Shows anymore.”

“Well, I gotta protect my investment, Az,” Gabriel grinned, finally letting go of him only to direct a feint one-two punch motion. “Got a couple of loose cannons keeping me on my toes this season!”

“Loose cannons?” Aziraphale snorted, trying not to look as proud of himself as he felt for not flinching.

“Hey, look. Twenty-five is a decent score, alright? Nobody’s disputing that.”

Ah, this was to be one of those conversations.

“I wasn’t aware you placed such stock in the judges’ scores,” Aziraphale cautiously offered, causing Gabriel’s face to wrinkle up in faux outrage.

“That’s crazy! You know I only have the highest respect for our judging panel. They are the preachers at the pulpit of our little venture here,” he leaned in close, beckoning Aziraphale forward. “But, Aziraphale. Do you know who holds the _real_ power in a church?”

“Well, I suppose it depends on what denomination one hails from, but most likely—”

“The congregation! Couldn’t have put it better myself,” Gabriel nodded, pulling out his phone and jabbing brutally at the screen with his thumbs. “So, do us all a favour, and try not to let whatever _that_ was happen again, yeah?”

Aziraphale tried to follow some logical pattern in the conversation, but came up unsurprisingly short. Perhaps if he just concentrated on what was in front of him, and slowly took a few steps back, it would all become clear momentarily. Something akin to one of those confounding three-dimensional, magic-eye pictures, which Aziraphale had never gotten the hang of.

“So, in this metaphor, the congregation is… the general public?” 

“Bingo!” Gabriel looked up, and presented his phone to Aziraphale. “There are already articles out there, right now, not five minutes after broadcast, saying how you two aren’t _improving._ Tabloids, Aziraphale. They’re our lifeblood.”

“I thought the congregation were our—”

“You’re at the halfway point! You and I both know that the judges’ scores are going to start to _matter_ come next week, because now Hannah Housewife hasn’t got her favourite disgusting comedian to vote for anymore, she’s going to start paying attention to new favourites, and that’s where the judges come in. If someone’s gonna vote to keep in a couple they weren’t rooting for from the beginning, then they wanna damn well make sure it’s a good couple, and how do they do that? _They listen to the experts._ And what the media _tells_ them about what the experts say. Are you following me here?”

Aziraphale, unfortunately, was following him— even if he felt like he was following a marathon runner, when he was only used to a short distance sprint and then a very long sit down.

“We all like you and Tony, or Crowley, or whatever he wants to call himself. Gotta clap myself on the back for putting the two of you together, really, I do—” for a moment Aziraphale was certain Gabriel would _actually_ clap himself on the back, “—but I want a return on my investment, Aziraphale. I like to see my risks pay off. You two need to step up your game and make sure you stay in the show for a little while longer, because your audience engagement, _whoo_ buddy!” Gabriel raised the flat of his palm diagonally up and up, extending over both of their heads. “Hashtag Team Delighted, am I right, or am I right?!”

 _So this is what it’s like,_ Aziraphale thought, _to feel thoroughly hoisted by your own petard._

“It’s _Delightful.”_

“It sure is! So, I think we’re both on the same page here, huh? We want the same things, Az. So whatever shit you and your partner went through this week,” Gabriel brought the still-suspended palm down to Aziraphale’s shoulder, and shook him a little to emphasis each word, _“sort it the fuck out_. _"_

By the time Aziraphale pulled himself together enough to make his way back to the balcony, Crowley was gone.

* * *

Crowley’s phone was pinging ominously in his pocket.

It had pinged plenty of times before in its life, but it had never done so _ominously._ It had been a mistake, Crowley knew, to grab it on his way past the Green Room, but he hadn’t been thinking clearly. This was a purposeful move on Crowley’s part, because if he’d been thinking clearly then he would have started thinking about what the _hell_ had gone wrong with their performance, and the conclusion he had reached _yet again_ was that it was probably all his fault, that Aziraphale had been acting so strangely this week because of _him,_ and that Gabriel had just appeared to whisk Aziraphale away in what felt suspiciously like a CIA kidnapping operation because of whatever _he’d_ done to fuck it all up. So he wasn’t thinking clearly, because he didn’t _want_ to think about any of that shit. He was thinking, quite messily, that he needed a fucking cigarette. 

Another ominous ping.

He’d also thought that maybe, just _maybe,_ being several hundred miles away might have been enough to stop the borderline-fascist psychic oversight of his lungs, but no. That would be too much to hope for. At least he knew she had signal again, which meant he could expect her to invade his home sometime in the wee small hours of the morning. The click of his heels echoed down the corridor as he reached the back door of the studio lot, and Crowley sent out a silent prayer that nobody else would be loitering out here and he could have some time to collect himself without having to engage in small talk. 

His stance on praying, and all the good it did you, was reaffirmed when he pushed the door open and was confronted with a bunch of professional loiterers. 

Hard, Hairy, Filthy and Huge stood huddled together around the bins and chain-smoking furiously. They weren’t, of course, actually _called_ that—like the gross, towering cousins of the seven dwarves. Crowley had just never bothered learning their names because, up until this point, he’d had nothing to do with the band. He didn’t _want_ anything to do with the band. They were awful, thanks in no small part to the out-of-time, too-loud, off-key twanging and clashing of this motley crew. Stood out like sore thumbs amongst the rest of the waif-like _conservatoire_ lot; huge bushy beards covering their little bow-ties and beer bellies stretching out their cummerbunds. Crowley tugged his jacket a little tighter around him to guard against both the chilly autumnal wind and the possibility that he might get hate-crimed. Three of them were ignoring him, but the smallest one, Filthy, was staring right at him. At least the jacket he’d grabbed was Aziraphale’s, which was roomy enough that it covered the most revealing parts of the dress easy. That was the main reason Crowley had grabbed it on his way out the door. It definitely was _not_ because it made Crowley feel stupidly pleasant to be wrapped up in Aziraphale’s clothing, faint traces of the man’s scent lingering on the collar which he’d pulled right up around his face _only_ because of the cold and not for any fucking weird reason like having the occasional sniff.

There was a third, slightly-more-devious reason Crowley had nicked his partner’s jacket. He patted the pockets and was elated to feel something hard and metal press into his side, his searching hands rewarded by the cigarette case and lighter Aziraphale had carried with him back on the rooftop. He put a cigarette to his lips, raised the lighter, flicked his thumb and— nothing. 

The blasted thing was out of fuel. Crowley desperately tried to think of a solution, _any_ solution, other than the obvious, but to no avail. Anathema was right, smoking would be the death of him. 

_Well, here goes nothing._

“Oi, lads,” he tried his best not to totter as he moved towards them, but it was hard to do anything else in these heels and this wind. “Any of you got a light?”

Huge, who easily loomed over Crowley even with the added height of his shoes, nudged Filthy. Filthy looked Crowley up and down once more, and then nodded, tossing him a plastic lighter with a very raunchy picture of Miss Piggy on it.

“Cheers, uh,—” _don’t say Filthy, don’t say Filthy, do not say Filthy this man could crush you with a single thumb_ “—sorry, gents. Not actually had the pleasure yet, have I?”

“Scuzz,” said Filthy, with a hacking snort.

“Big Ted,” said Hard, raising his cigarette to his lips and showing off not one, not two, but _three_ gigantic silver skull rings.

“Pigbog,” this was Hairy, whose knuckles had the classic _LOVE/HATE_ tattoos adorning them.

“Greaser,” said Huge, whose knuckles had the slightly-more-obscure _FISH/CHIP_ combo.

“Anthony J Crowley,” he replied, as politely as he usually did, which was not at all. Filthy— _S_ _kuzz,_ he hadn’t been far off the mark there—wouldn’t stop eyeing him up. It was making him nervous. “Those all Equity names, then?” Crowley tried for a joke, but winced the second he did so. Sully himself could not have landed that one. 

“Wossat when it’s at home then?” asked Big Ted. “Another chapter?”

“Chapter of… what?”

“Hell’s Angels, ‘course,” Greaser threw a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the four bikes at the gated edge of the back lot. Crowley found himself in the odd position of suddenly understanding everything, and understanding absolutely nothing at the same time.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Crowley said, “how on earth do four members of Hell’s Angels end up playing in the _Strictly_ band?”

“Ah, well, funny old story, that,” said Big Ted. “Had a near death experience, all four of us, few years back. Ridin’ along, on our way to a chapter meetin’, and _boom.”_

“Was like a sign or somefink,” said Pigbog, eyes wide.

“A sign from… _God?”_ said Crowley, trying not to sound as incredulous as he felt.

“Nah, I mean like a big sign. Billboard, somefink like that,” Pigbog clarified. “Came flying right over the M1. Was dead windy that day. Knocked us clean off our bikes.”

Crowley took a drag of his cigarette, trying his best to keep up. He felt like he’d been plunged into week one rehearsals all over again. 

“Decided we were all gettin’ on a bit, maybe should do somethin’ a bit more on the safe side,” Big Ted nodded. “We’d already got a few years of musical trainin’ under our belts, auditioned for the band, bit of _persuadin’_ of the conductor—if you know what I’m sayin’—and here we all are.”

“Sorry, you mean to tell me you all already knew how to play?”

The band all laughed at him. Crowley wasn’t sure exactly _what_ they were laughing at. The idea that these men hadn’t picked up an instrument before auditioning would explain a lot about the _Strictly_ band’s reputation. The fact that they supposedly had prior experience was unthinkable. 

“They don’t just let anyone be in the _Strictly_ band, mate,” Greaser ground the last of his cig under his heel. He already had another one in his mouth. “Years of experience between us. Did back-up, dint we.”

“Back-up for who? Metallica cover band? Iron Maiden tribute act?”

“Skuzz’s drag act.”

Skuzz wiggled his fingers at Crowley, who instantly reinterpreted the way the man had been checking him out earlier. The conversation drifted into Skuzz asking Crowley where he got his heels from. _“Reckon my act only never took off coz I never had shoes big enuff, just wore boots on stage all the time.”_ The rest of the group then shouted him down, apparently all in agreement that his act never took off because he couldn’t decide on a name. _"You were only Ms. Embarrassin’ Personal Problems for about a day an’ a half!” “I still fink you woulda been better sticking wif Thumpin’ Em.” “Nah, that never worked properly, did it?”_. Crowley took his time with the rest of his cigarette while waiting for them to finish arguing, before speaking up again.

“So, _sorry,_ I know I’m repeating myself here but just wanna make sure I’m getting this right. You all almost got crushed to death by a billboard, on your way to a Hell’s Angels chapter meeting, and decided that you’d turn away from a life of breaking people’s arms for fun and scaring little old ladies and an unfortunately unsuccessful drag career in order to… play in the esteemed _Strictly Come Dancing_ band?”

“Can’t argue with a sign like that, mate.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure a near-death experience changes things but—”

“Big fuck-off glittery billboard sayin’ _STRICTLY COME DANCING!_ almost lands on yer head, you sorta have t’pay attention to somefink like that,” said Greaser. 

Crowley found himself making a vague affirmative noise in response, but couldn’t really relate. He’d never been one for paying attention to signs. Speed limit signs, No Flash Photography signs, star signs, ‘DO NOT TOUCH’ signs— he took great amounts of satisfaction and glee in ignoring them, and encouraging others to do the same. This week, though, he’d been a little more wary of signs, considering how many conflicting ones his partner had thrown his way. Whatever had happened to spook Aziraphale on Monday had reared its ugly head again without him noticing, and now it was affecting their performance. Sure, they hadn’t scored terribly and, sure, even _without_ a good score they would most likely get through to next week if their little corner of the internet had anything to say about it, but. 

Still. 

The problem was he didn’t like the idea of them keeping their place on the show without _earning_ it, and he was sure Aziraphale didn’t either. They should be better at all this by now, and Crowley _knew_ they had this dance down pat when he’d left Aziraphale on Friday night, so this wasn’t something that could have been fixed with a few more rehearsals and a few less boozy afternoons out. 

Crowley knew that they’d ignored a _lot_ between the two of them to get to this point, and now that they’d built something up together he didn’t want to see it go blowing down like a billboard across the M1. If these big, burly bikers could sack off a life of GBH misdemeanours to play cover versions of the hits of yesteryear every week for a bunch of bedazzled celebs, he could probably handle paying attention to a sign for once and realise his historic tendency to default to _not talking about it_ wasn’t going to cut the mustard here. He could be proactive, he could _do something_ about this and—what’s more—he _wanted_ to do something about this. Crowley felt like this was a big moment of personal growth for him, and rewarded himself with a second cigarette.

His phone pinged. This time, the ping sounded less ominous and more furious.

 _Well,_ he thought, _maybe some signs can still be ignored._

* * *

“I’ve been in circles all week, trying to decide on the best course of action. Do I talk to him about it? Not talk to him? Do I propose an arrangement, of sorts, to get it out of our systems? If he agrees to that, what if it muddies the waters further? It could be bad. We could be bad. Or it could be good. Too good, he could develop feelings. I could develop feelings. I could already have feelings, I’m not quite sure, yet. I could say, _here, Crowley, let’s just—when this is over, would you like to go to Tuscany? We could drink an awful lot of wine and eat olives and shag each other senseless._ Or, _Crowley, I’ve been reading a great deal of Frank O’Hara and I think we should go for a picnic and wander through the Tate, because you really do remind me of a better, happier Saint Sebastian._ Or, _dear Crowley, I understand there is something happening between us but I really think we should nip this in the bud before it gets out of hand._ In which case, he could laugh at me, because this could all be entirely the fabrication of an old fool with too much imagination and not enough excitement in his life.”

“So what are you going to do?”

Aziraphale looked up. An old woman with a scarf knotted under her chin eyed him from the other side of the park bench. She reached over, helped herself to some of his bread, and scattered it on the water. It was a crisp day, with a little too much bite for the nannies and their prams, and so the ducks gobbled up the offerings greedily. 

“Sorry?”

“About your young man,” she clarified. “You’ve been talking to these poor ducks for a good fifteen minutes, dear. Seems to me—and don’t take this the wrong way—that this isn’t the first time they’ve heard it, eh? After a certain point you’ve got to shit or get off the pot, don’t you.”

Aziraphale tucked his scarf a little tighter. “What a charming way to describe my romantic predicament.”

“Doesn’t have to be romantic, you said so yourself. You can’t shock me, I’ve got a webcam and a thing going with a handsome septuagenarian in Doncaster.” She then winked, as if Aziraphale could not have garnered her meaning from context. “So? What are you going to do?”

Aziraphale stared at the water, and suddenly he knew. He took a breath.

“Nothing,” he said. “I’m not going to do anything.”

The old woman seemed taken aback. “Nothing?”

“Nothing. I am simply going to—wait. It’s far too early to be making any sort of decision yet. I don’t want to rush into anything. No,” he added, warming to his theme, “I am going to let things… percolate, and see how the situation develops.”

She shook her head and _tsked._ “Fortune favours the brave, love,” she said pointedly.

Aziraphale stood, brushing breadcrumbs from his trousers. “Yes,” he said, “but I have it on good authority that the meek shall inherit the Earth.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello from your showrunners mort & marginalia! first of all apologies about the delay on the posting of this week, you are all incredibly lovely and patient and encouraging and we want to live up to those expectations and feel we owe you an explanation.
> 
> we lost marginalia. very briefly. on a train. 
> 
> that's literally what happened. mort was, as always, perfectly on time. even managed to bake a cake while they waited.
> 
> and, really, if fingers of blame _must_ be pointed then look no further than how INCREDIBLY TIME CONSUMING IT IS TO FORMAT THINGS ON AO3 _WHEN YOU'RE ALREADY RUNNING LATE_
> 
> anyway now we are both safe, well, annoyed at british rail services and planning to eat a lot of cake.


	9. Week Eight — The Paso Doble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **7:00pm** —  
> Two dancers, both alike (in)dignity  
> From fairest Elstree, where we lay our scene,  
> From ancient grudge break to new amity,  
> When softshoe pro meets volatile has-been.  
> Compatible, the loins of these two foes,  
> A pair of star-crossed lovers, late in life,  
> But misadventure happiness overthrows:  
> Can fate and footwork end their foolish strife?  
> — _it's Week Eight_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy there from Marginalia and Mort! Marginalia is writing the AN today, as Mort is currently swearing at AO3’s rich text editor. You might have noticed we upped our rating! We’ll be honest, this is never gonna be an explicit fic, but in the words of the BBFC, this chapter does contain use of language and some scenes of a sexual nature. This is a chunky chapter, and it was GREAT fun to write, and we hope you enjoy it!!! 

* * *

Crowley often forgot he actually had a balcony.

He knew it _existed,_ in a roundabout sort of way. It had been listed on the perks when he looked into buying the place, had given him pause to wonder whether or not he wanted to branch into being a person who grew outdoor plants; but in the end he’d eschewed the perennials for two iron chairs and a table and called it a day. Yes, okay, maybe he’d bought the furniture with the subconscious thought that at some point in the future he _might,_ one sunny London day, sit out there and watch the world continue to turn without any input from him whatsoever. Maybe with someone sitting by his side— but if anyone asked, he’d only gotten two chairs because his stylistic sensibilities were immutable and the brand didn’t sell them as single units, _alright?_

This wasn’t a particularly sunny London day. In fact, it was a mizzly Sunday morning in November. It was not the sort of day for a continental _petit déjeuner_ outdoors, and _definitely_ not the sort of circumstances he’d envisioned whenever he did imagine balcony breakfast—but the element of surprise would work in his favour here. Were it not for his urgent need to piss in the wee small hours of the morning, he might have been caught entirely off guard. Crowley, in the midst of his nocturnal stumble to the bathroom, had quite impressively tripped on an overnight bag dumped in the middle of the hallway. Recovering from the trip had only taken a moment, but the visceral stab of fear that went through him as every ignored call, every barked rebuttal, every single unread email notification hovering like a little Sword of Damocles over his inbox flashed before his eyes took a little longer to recover from. Crowley had needed a plan, and he’d needed it fast, which was why he was awake before 10am on a Sunday, eyeing the pot of coffee on the hob. 

“Crowley? What are you doing?”

It was a rare sight, Anathema Device dishevelled. She’d clearly come straight here after her five-hundred-odd mile journey back from the wilds of Scotland, probably passed out on the sofa or something. Her hair was a wild nest of tangles and curls, her brow knitted together in sleepy confusion. Her pyjamas said RESTING WITCH FACE, which would have given Crowley a _lot_ more ammunition than might have been fair if he wasn’t the one who’d given them to her.

“Anathema! Welcome back to the land of the living,” he grinned, cocking a hip against the counter and crossing his arms. “Don’t you look _radiant.”_

“Fuck you,” she muttered, rubbing her eyes. “Are you… making breakfast?”

“Yep,” Crowley said, shrugging as if he was this magnanimous every day. “Just thought, y’know. You’ve had a long journey back, probably too knackered to sort yourself out, so I took the liberty. Didn’t have much in the way of fancy nibbles or anything but I’ve got some stuff out on the table. Thought we could eat on the balcony. Blankets from the living room, nice hot pot of coffee, catch up.”

Anathema took her hands away from her eyes, and it looked like she’d managed to rub all the sleep out of them because now they were just narrowing in suspicion.

“That sounds _nice.”_

Crowley grinned.

“Doesn’t it just? Go on, you grab the blankets, I’ll bring the coffee.”

Once the two of them were settled, caffeinated and wrapped in two of Crowley’s plushest throws, the nerves started to kick in. Anathema was calm. _Too_ calm. He’d thought she might’ve started yelling at him a _bit_ by now, or at least raised her voice. Crowley’s knee started to bounce up and down without permission as they had a very lovely, very meaningless chat about the colour the trees on Crowley’s street had turned, and how they were so very different to the trees Anathema had been surrounded by for the past week.

“So you had a good time, then?” Crowley finally asked, table rattling wildly between them as his leg jerked against it.

“It was very... spiritually refreshing,” Anathema said, humming a little and stirring another sweetener into her coffee. “I felt at one with nature, and my siblings, and I’m pretty sure I achieved a mild state of nirvana sometime on Thursday afternoon.”

Crowley’s leg stilled. There was something in her tone. Something he could work with. It was a gamble—a big gamble, _huge_ gamble—but it might just pay off. He took a breath.

“Sounds to me,” Crowley said, keeping his voice low, “like you were bored shitless.”

“Oh my _god,_ you have _no idea!”_ Anathema groaned, kicking her legs out and slumping down in her chair as if she’d been having to physically hold herself together as much as Crowley. “It was so, _so_ boring! Like, don’t get me wrong— I love going back to basics and seeing all my old coven, and actual Samhain itself was a _blast,_ but the rest of the time there was just… nothing to _do,_ and everyone was so determined to _reconnect with their inner selves_ that they all just fully started ignoring _actionable solutions_ from people who might _actually_ have a better handle on how to solve their stupid problems!”

Crowley’s mouth dropped open in delight. This was better than he could have _ever_ dreamed of.

“You’re pissed because nobody listened to you!”

Anathema snorted, taking a swig of her coffee. 

“I’m _pissed_ because I hate masturbatory magic.”

“No, no no no, you’re pissed off because you wanted to do what you do best, which is stomp around telling everyone _else_ what to do, and then you get to be smug about being right!” Crowley barked with laughter, leaning towards her over the little table. “Tell me I’m wrong, I dare you.”

“Do you really wanna go down this road?” She raised an eyebrow at him. “After all the messes I’ve just cleaned up for you? I’ll play you my voicemail inbox, right here and now, if you need proof. My phone _exploded_ on the drive back last night, and there are some very illuminating messages in there that make me wonder what you think _professionalism_ means—”

“Anathema,” Crowley said, leaning back victoriously in his chair. “You are very, very good at your job, and I appreciate all the hard work you put in on my behalf. Nobody else could possibly do what you do.”

“And clearly no-one’s going to,” she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose, but Crowley had half a decade’s worth of experience in reading her expressions. He could see the smile she was staving off. “I really am all _kinds_ of mad at you, Crowley, so you can stop _smiling_ like that now. Would it have killed you to handle one small task by yourself this week? Make _one_ decision without me there holding your hand, shoving you through the door?”

Crowley’s smile, if anything, only grew obnoxiously bigger. He’d thought he’d have to save his Saturday Night Epiphany as a trump card, in case the shouting became too much to handle— a power-move to shift her focus from his blunders to his personal growth. This was much better. Telling her when they were both in a good mood and could _celebrate_ it, when it would make her _happy_ for him, was a much more pleasant outcome to the morning.

She was, after all, sort of his best friend.

* * *

“I don’t wanna hear it!”

The door to Costume tried to slam in Aziraphale’s face, aided by a very furious Madame and greatly impeded by fire safety mechanisms. Tracy, aside from being the BBC’s best seamstress, was also an excellent bridge player, a very good first soprano, a terrible psychic, and—most importantly—an enabler. Aziraphale, on the whole, flocked to enablers. He couldn’t help it. Aziraphale would hesitate to call himself a hedonist, but only because the hesitation would give someone else a chance to leap in and tell him that yes, he was and yes, it was fine to be so and _oh, look, why don’t you have the last slice of cake then?_ He didn’t need much encouragement to follow his whims and fancies down whatever merry road they wished to lead him, but it was rather nice to have someone cheering you on as he went. Aziraphale knew that if he had run to Tracy last week with his little Crowley issue, she would have happily advised him to throw caution and clothing to the wind and _get on with it_. It was hard enough contending with his own enabling habits— the idea of having to fight off Tracy’s as well was exhausting. So, he had made the very unwise but wholly necessary decision to ignore her for the week. 

“Tracy, my dear, you’re being _absolutely_ ridiculous!” Aziraphale hissed, having wedged his very nice cream-and-tan brogue in the door to stop it from closing entirely. “You’re causing a scene!”

“Oh, a _scene!_ A scene he says! I’ll give you a scene, Aziraphale Fell! Ignore me for a week! Cancel our Movie Night! Only come to see me when you want something done! If I’d wanted a man to treat me that way, I’d have called up wossiname, my ex, the one with the—”

“Roger.”

"No, not him, the handsome one, with the—”

“Oh, Harrison? No, no, that’s not right either.”

“Tip of my tongue… Something Salt?”

“Peter.”

“Peter!” She threw up her hands, stepping back from the doorway. “That’s the bastard. Honestly, I can’t think why I ever put up with any of ‘em. _You_ included.”

Aziraphale tried his best to look sheepish. He was a bit of a dab hand at it, but Tracy knew him far too well to be hoodwinked. 

“I brought you breakfast,” he offered when that failed, holding up the bistro take-out bag to the crack in the doorway. “To apologise for my beastly behaviour this week.”

“Oh, alright. Come in if you’re coming in. Could do with a break anyway,” Tracy said, already disappearing off into the back of the workshop. “You’ll have to sit there and listen to me complain about work, mind.”

“Nothing would delight me more,” Aziraphale assured her, closing the door behind him. He meant it, too. Tracy’s problems were not _his_ problems, Crowley was not one of Tracy’s problems, and therefore Tracy’s problems made for a perfectly safe breakfast discussion. There would be no need to talk about Crowley whatsoever. This morning was about coasting past the little bump in an otherwise solid relationship. He set their food down on one of the empty workstations. To the side of him, several mood boards covered in swatches of black fabric took up much of the floorspace.

“Designing something new for Crowley?” Aziraphale asked, then cursed himself. Not even through the door for five minutes and he was _already_ bringing him up. Perhaps this had been a bad idea, after all.

“You think I’d do something like that without consulting you?” Tracy snorted, and gave one of the mood boards a swift kick. “This is all for Mister Sable. Think he means to work me to the bone, all these changes.”

“He does seem a tad fussy,” Aziraphale said, then pretended to be busy dishing out their food when he noticed the look Tracy gave him in response.

“Fussy I can handle, this is…” Tracy shook her head, looking tired. “It’s more work than I signed up for, I can tell you that much. It’s not just him, either. They’re all at it. Ms Zuigiber, Mrs Dowling— even dear old Adam’s been getting right on my pips this year! Retirement is starting to look more and more tempting by the second.”

Aziraphale felt a small flurry of panic at the idea of a _Strictly_ studio without her. She must have caught it as it made a dash across his face, because she smiled and softened properly. 

“Don’t you worry, love. Just thinking out loud, I’ve no plans to go anywhere yet— already got my outfit picked out for Blackpool next week! Besides, can’t leave you alone for five minutes,” Tracy twinkled knowingly at him. “I mean, just look what happens with you and that partner of yours when I do.”

_How,_ Aziraphale thought, _can she_ possibly _know?_

“I, er. I can’t imagine what you’re referring to.”

“You can’t think you could’ve hidden it from me,” Tracy sniffed, leaning back in her seat. “Everyone’s talking about it.”

“Everyone?!” Aziraphale squeaked.

“Well, alright, not everyone,” she conceded, and Aziraphale’s heart also conceded that it might as well start beating again. “But I would have much rather heard about last Wednesday from the horse’s mouth, if I’m being honest. Not sure I’ve got the full story, but from what I hear it sounds like an absolute _riot.”_

Aziraphale blinked.

“Last Wednesday?”

“Oh, don’t act coy! I know Mister C was in here, drunk as anything, trying to cheerlead your Botafogo,” Tracy prodded a finger into his chest. “Why’d you leave me out of the fun? Could’ve done with a bit of a laugh in the middle of this week from Hell.”

“It wasn’t intentional, my dear lady,” Aziraphale lied, and felt horribly guilty about it, especially so when Tracy just gave him that gentle smile again in return.

“Well, as long as that’s the only thing I’ve missed this week.” She patted his knee. Aziraphale had held firm to the decision to not tell her a single thing about his internal deliberations of the past week, but he was just so fond of her, and it _would_ be nice to have a confidante who was a little more involved in all this than his barber. Someone who could truly _appreciate_ what a struggle it had been to not spend most of the last week ravishing Crowley, how hard he had worked to hold back the torrent of thoughts and feelings and urges in the face of such temptation, how awfully clever he was to have come to a decision that was best for everyone. Aziraphale’s hands fluttered across his person, tugging and tucking and fiddling as he geared himself up for what he needed to say to her. Tracy would listen to him and, he was certain, respect his wishes to not be pushed to breaking point. She would understand. 

She was, after all, his best friend.

* * *

“Oh, well, now that you mention it, there is something,” Crowley said, examining his nails, trying his best to draw out the build up. “Nothing major, of course, couldn’t _possibly_ do that without you.”

“Crowley, you are milking this _way_ too much, you’re actually starting to make me nervous.”

“I’ve decided,” he paused, initially for dramatic effect and to annoy Anathema a bit, but the longer he left it the more Crowley found himself also feeling weirdly nervous about admitting to this. “I’m, er, going to do something.”

“... you’re going to do something.” Anathema repeated. 

“About Aziraphale. About— about us. Me and him. I’ve decided I’m going to do something about it. This week, actually. Maybe Friday, after the thing. I want to sort it before we go to Blackpool. _If_ we get to go to Blackpool. I mean, of _course_ we’re going to Blackpool, but I don’t want to just coast by like last night, and I don’t think I can do that until I, y’know. Talk to him, tell him how I—” he grimaced, looking away over the railing of the balcony, _god_ this sounded juvenile, “—how I _feel.”_

Crowley let it settle for a moment, wanting to give himself some time to prepare before he had to look up at her. He was certain she’d be clapping in delight, or looking smug, or any one of her infuriatingly knowing expressions that he’d come to rely on to guide him through the difficult stuff; Anathema, the air traffic controller of his life. He didn’t need her instruction to woo Aziraphale, but it was nice knowing that, no matter what, she’d be there cheering him on from a secure booth. He glanced up.

All the colour had drained from Anathema’s face.

“That’s not meant to happen this week.”

* * *

“It’s funny you should mention, actually,” Aziraphale said. “In the interest of our friendship there is, ah, there is one more thing that I need to tell you. You’ll laugh, I’m certain of it.”

Tracy regarded him with a mixture of doubt and suspicion so potent he was worried it might spoil their food.

“Right, well,” he suddenly felt a lot less sure than he had not moments ago. “The thing is, you see. Is that I’ve realised. Ah. That I am somewhat enamoured with—”

“With Mister C, yes.”

Aziraphale was unable to help the slight dropping of his jaw.

“Sorry?”

“Well, we’ve known that for donkeys, now, haven’t we?” Tracy said, adding several sugar cubes to her tea as though everything was business as usual.

Aziraphale shook his head, in the hopes that his dizzy feeling was the result of an inner-ear condition and not due to his world being turned on its head. “Well, I— I, er, I suppose, if one were to put it like that, then— sorry, _how_ long have we known this for?”

“If I had to guess, since about September of 2010.”

Aziraphale burst out laughing.

“My goodness, you really had me going for a moment there! September of _this year_ would have been plenty funny on its own, considering it’s only been about a week now—”

Tracy dropped a sugar cube from a little higher than she might have meant to. A small tidal wave of tea sloshed over the side of the mug and splattered into the saucer.

“You what?”

“Er—”

“You mean to tell me,” Tracy said, too quiet and calm to be anything but livid, “that not only did you just figure this out a week ago, but you’ve had a whole _week_ knowing you could be dancing the horizontal tango with that fella of yours, and you ain’t done anything about it in all that time? For Heaven’s sake, Aziraphale, _why not?!”_

Aziraphale refused to blush.

“It’s just, just _fantasy,_ Tracy. There’s no guarantee there’s anything real here to act upon. I’ve made my decision, and my decision is that it’s simply not going to happen.” 

* * *

“What?”

“That’s not meant to—”

“No, I heard you, I just… _what?_ What do you mean, ‘that’s not meant to happen this week’?” 

Crowley had, like most people alive and kicking in the 21st century, occasionally dabbled in the _Truman Show_ delusion. He didn’t do it often, as he had plenty of other more user-friendly delusions to keep him occupied, but there were times like this when it came back to him with a frightening clarity. Anathema launched herself out of her chair, muttering under her breath the whole time, and disappeared back into the flat. He could hear her scrabbling in the hallway, the telltale sound of a suitcase being frantically unzipped.

“My journal, I need— this can’t be right, you can’t have decided— how would you have even _known,_ things can’t have progressed this much in a few days, god where _is it_ , don’t tell me I left it on the backseat of the car, I— _ah-ha!”_

* * *

“You must be joking!”

Aziraphale held up his hands in an effort to placate her.

“Now, you have to know I’m making sense. There are myriad reasons why this can’t happen. Oodles, in fact.”

“Is this why I had to hear about last Wednesday from my Dougie?” she gasped. “It _is,_ isn’t it?! I told him, I said, _are you sure, love? Aziraphale would’ve told me if something like that happened!_ And do you know what he said? Do you?”

“No doubt it was perfectly comprehensible and charmingly verbose,” Aziraphale muttered, under his breath.

“Oi! Not the time to get smart with me, mister,” she sniffed, crossing her arms. “He said _Marjorie, sweetheart—”_

“Marjorie? You’re already at _Marjorie_? When on earth did that happen? Why didn’t you tell me that it was so, so _—_ _serious?”_

* * *

Anathema skidded back out onto the balcony, holding her planning journal aloft. She slammed it down on the table, pointing to two pages which Crowley thought _might_ have had CROWLEY and AZIRAPHALE written across the top of them. The state of Anathema’s handwriting, however, meant it was just as legible to him as the rest of the pages, which were covered in large circles, various dividing lines, weird geometric shapes in different colours filling the circles and touching the edges. The sides of both circles were _covered_ in hastily scribbled notes, and Crowley could just about make out the word _‘Mercury’._

“Oh, it’s just _astrology,”_ Crowley said, heaving a relieved sigh. “For a minute there I thought it was something serious.”

* * *

Tracy scoffed, raising an eyebrow. “Not nice to be kept out of the loop, is it, Mister Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale winced. 

“Look, I admit my previous reticence was poor form, but I’m not telling you now so you can try to _convince_ me, my dear. I’m positive that waiting it out is the best option. I’m simply telling you because— because—”

“All this time, all these _months_ building up to this, watching you two get closer and closer, and now you’re really going to stand there and tell me it took you an entire week to decide that, when the time comes, you’re going to do _nothing_ ,” she said. 

* * *

Anathema gestured more frantically to the AZIRAPHALE page.

“This is serious, Crowley! Nothing here is in alignment, nothing makes _sense,"_ she slumped back into her chair, rubbing her temples. “If this happens this week, I’m telling you now, it is _not_ going to go well. Take my advice, and _don’t.”_

Crowley eyed the page suspiciously.

“Is this payback because I told you that you like being right all the time?”

“No, this is me _actually being right._ _”_

* * *

Aziraphale hesitated. 

“The trouble with you, Aziraphale,” Tracy sighed, coming over to straighten his collar, “is that you just dither on and on, never taking the leap. You can’t just wait around forever.”

“I know,” said Aziraphale.

* * *

“The trouble with you, Crowley,” Anathema said, picking up her now-cold coffee, “is that you always leap in. Eyes closed, head first. You can’t just make it up as you go along every time.”

“I know,” said Crowley.

* * *

“I think what you need is to have a nice long bath, maybe a glass of wine, and to really _think_ about what you want out of this.”

“Absolutely.”

* * *

“I think what you need is to have a cold shower, another coffee, and to really _think_ about what you want out of this.”

“Absolutely.”

* * *

“Just give it the week, yeah? To properly consider what you might be missing out on if you don’t do this now. You’ll be no good to anyone, miserable about having made a mistake like this.”

* * *

“Just give it until next week, yeah? To properly consider what exactly you might be messing up if you do this now. You’ll be no good to anyone, miserable about making a mistake this big.”

* * *

“Right,” he said, still resolute but also—though he’d never let her know it—a little shaken.

* * *

Anathema II was still alive.

This fact came as a shock to both Crowley and, more worryingly, Aziraphale. 

“You must’ve known she was doing alright though, surely?” Crowley said, squatting down to examine her. “I mean, you’ve done the right thing, taking her out of direct sunlight, moving her back here where it’s colder. Best thing you can do for them in winter. Let ‘em think they’re still in their natural habitat.”

“Oh, really?” Aziraphale said, doing that thing where he sounded both delighted and guilty all at the same time. “Oh, oh that is _so_ good to hear. I thought for certain that she’d trapped her last when she started going all, well—” he gestured to her rapidly blackening leaves, “—like _that_. _”_

Crowley turned to look up at him, making sure all the smug victoriousness he currently felt showed in his grin.

“And you tried to hide the body, eh? Removing evidence from the scene of the crime, angel. Tut tut.”

“Yes, you’ve made your point, Several times now, in fact,” Aziraphale said. 

“I did try and tell you, at the party. They’re no picnic to look after. Not everyone can just accidentally stumble into doing right by a Venus flytrap,” he went to stand up, but got a bit tangled in the long, dramatic skirt he’d put on to rehearse in. Aziraphale caught him, a steady hand at his elbow to help him the rest of the way up. “Ta. Anyway, are you telling me in this whole bloody bookshop you don’t have a _single_ tome on plant care?”

Aziraphale huffed, exactly the way Crowley had wanted him to, and straightened the ends of his rolled-up sleeves again to cover up his embarrassment. Crowley wondered when he’d started finding predictability _endearing_ rather than boring. “And _I_ told _you,_ I’m not that sort of bookshop. Any books I have on botany are over a hundred years old— hardly appropriate for the modern-day green-thumb.”

_“Green-thumb,”_ Crowley said, rolling his eyes. “Well, I’m sure I’ve got an old book on the topic knocking about at my place. No use to me at all. I’ll loan you it, if you’d like.”

Crowley, watching Aziraphale’s face light up at this affectedly casual offer, once again had to contemplate just how irritatingly _right_ Anathema was. After the weird blip last week, they seemed to have swung back into that lovely, easy place where everything was fun and flirty back-and-forths and nothing mattered, and he didn’t want to spoil it by poking the bear of naked emotion quite yet. If he’d put himself out there, like he was planning to do: marched right into the studio that Monday morning and said _"_ _Hey Aziraphale, we need to talk about The Great Plan, and also, just as a side note to that, how I’d quite like it if you had me up against the mirror over there and also that I think I’m probably going to be fully in love with you any day now. Thoughts?”_ there was absolutely no way on God’s green earth they would have been able to go on dancing together. In the grand scheme of things, they’d really only known each other for a little over two months, but that didn’t stop Crowley from _knowing_ him. The man would have fled for the hills, grabbing only his favourite books and a stash of tea bags and leaving an Aziraphale-shaped dust cloud behind him. So. Anathema was right. Making any sort of move this week was completely off the table.

He did also privately congratulate himself on making sure that all the carnivorous plant care books he’d ordered last week were from secondhand sellers, and had been marked ‘well-loved’.

“Right, now that we know you’ve not accidentally committed floricide, shall we get on with it? I need a minute to get back into character. Never played a cape before— it’s a bit of an adjustment, I’ve gotta be honest,” Crowley said, moving back into the centre of the bookshop.

“You’re not _just_ playing the _cappa_ _,"_ Aziraphale informed him, for the fourth time that evening. Crowley had lost count of how many times this week he’d heard this same spiel. “You are the cape of the _torero_ _,_ yes, but you are also the bull he is fighting, _and—”_

_“And_ a flamenco dancer, and the matador’s mum, and on and on. I know, I know. Bit confusing, isn’t it? All these roles for one person to play. Like the bloody Cloud Atlas of dances,” Crowley muttered, swishing his skirt and swearing as he knocked over yet _another_ pile of books. Aziraphale had promised he’d tidied up, but Crowley had seen what the shop looked like ‘untidy’ and therefore should have known his partner’s version of ‘tidy’ would be a far cry from the standard. 

“If we perform it correctly, it won’t be confusing at all,” Aziraphale said, looking pointedly at the books scattered across their floor space and not moving an inch to pick any of them up. Crowley, in turn, looked pointedly down at the very long skirt and flamenco heels he was wearing. Somewhere, amongst the labyrinthine depths of the bookshop, a clock chimed the hour.

“By the way,” Crowley said, when he was halfway through picking up the books, “what’s the deal for tomorrow morning? You wanna just meet at the studios, or what?”

Aziraphale, who had picked up exactly _one_ book—though Crowley had a sneaking suspicion this was because it was, from the quick glimpse he’d gotten of the cover, a _dirty_ book—made a little scoffing sound.

“If you’d just _tell me_ where we’re going, I could meet you there. It seems absolutely ridiculous to go all the way to the studios only to pop back out again.”

Tomorrow was Friday, and it was Crowley’s turn to be subjected to the Reality part of the reality show. The Beeb loved throwing in little training montages at the beginning of random weeks; he had a feeling these may become more frequent as the contestant pool narrowed and the runtime remained the same. For this one, Crowley had to go to a place that was _meaningful_ to him. When the list of suggested places had first come through— _your old school, the set of your current series, your family home_ —he’d laughed, and then laughed some more, and then panicked. There wasn’t an appearance fee high enough that could convince him to take one step back onto the grounds of his old boarding school, he hadn’t worked on a set in years, and as for his family home— look, it just all seemed a little _pedestrian,_ didn’t it. That was the point. It was a segment designed to endear you to the public, to say to the people at home watching: _‘Celebs! They’re just like you!’_ Humble beginnings and all that. Crowley didn’t like to consider anything about himself humble. In retaliation, he’d picked a place that had the dual benefit of feeling ostentatious enough to satisfy his whims and, more importantly, would probably impress Aziraphale so much that—if he could just keep it secret until they got there—he’d do that thing with his face where he kept trying to stuff down that silly little smile only to have it spring back into place against his will. 

“You love surprises,” Crowley said. “Why spoil this one?”

“Forgive me, dear boy, but you can’t blame me for being nervous about it,” Aziraphale said, watching as Crowley carried the books over to the till, to join several more stacks of their displaced brethren. “When a person with a face tattoo and a propensity for wearing a lot of black and sunglasses indoors says to you that they plan on taking you somewhere without your prior knowledge or consent, it does conjure up a certain _vibe.”_

Crowley was only half paying attention to this round of banter, because the book on the top of his pile had caught his eye. He wondered, as he slotted the stack into play on the counter, how easily he could slide it into his bag without Aziraphale cottoning on. He’d only be _borrowing_ it until tomorrow. It was pretty battered, and looked old, and it had been on the _floor_. Couldn’t be that precious, no? 

_Besides, he’s always blathering on that I should read more,_ Crowley reasoned. _I’m just taking his advice. And his old book._

“Ah, but what if this person is suave and handsome?” Crowley asked, a question which conveniently covered up the sound of a book dropping into an open bag.

“Oh well, that’s _different,_ Were someone suave and handsome to ask, I’d happily follow them without fuss,” Aziraphale said. “Now, Crowley?”

“Yes, angel?”

“I _demand_ you tell me where we’re going tomorrow.”

* * *

It was a November day to inspire poets, as clean and clear as if winter had gutted the sky. No clouds, just blue and blue into vertigo. It had been three days since bonfire night, and Aziraphale fancied he could still smell the scorch overlaying the cold. He stood below the stage at the Globe Theatre, hands clasped behind him, looking up at the blue beyond the thatch that ringed the open roof. 

“This… isn’t I was expecting,” he remarked.

“It’s a bit like being under God’s eye, innit?” Crowley mused, kicking his legs against the edge of the stage. Half-smiling, he held up one hand and waggled his fingers skyward in a mocking wave. “Hi, Mum.”

Aziraphale smiled into his paper cup of tea. Crowley seemed full of the joys of Spring— or, well, Autumn— today. It made him expansive, generous with his movements; he’d acquired an orange from god knows where, and was tossing and catching it above his head like a tennis ball. Aziraphale could admit that he had become unreasonably attuned to Crowley’s moods, here in the overtures of his infatuation. He was surprisingly easy to read, once one got the hang of his Byzantine ways of expressing himself. For example, Aziraphale could read that he was relaxed, judging by the way his leg was swinging rather than jiggling, and that he’d had a good night’s sleep, because there was a small braid in his hair. 

He had also noted that Crowley looked remarkably handsome, which was possibly because he was wearing a coat. The flourishes of his own attraction were often murky and mysterious to Aziraphale, but he had always been fond of a good frame in a good coat. Crowley had _also_ acquired a knit hat, which made him look more of an actor, though why exactly Aziraphale couldn’t say. 

“The open roof was practical,” he replied. “Hard to light stages in Shakespeare’s day. Expensive, you know, and a fire hazard besides.”

“No Health and Safety back then. No Andys.” Crowley nodded genially at their Location Manager, who was, in fact, named Andy, and who had just finished lecturing one of the road minions on the importance of taping down their cables. He waved. “Would have been bloody hard to see, though, come sunset. All Julius Caesar's cronies taking a stab in the dark. _‘Whoops, sorry, Cassius, got you right up the jacksy—’"_

“That’s why all the performances were at two-ish. Sunlight was cheap, and the poor were used to getting rained on.”

“Same as it ever was.” Crowley tossed the orange and caught it; it fell into his cupped hand with a satisfying _whap._ “Hey, d’you think Bill ever had to do one of these?”

“I’m fairly sure he never had to give a fluffy interview as part of a celebrity dance competition, no.”

“Right.”

Aziraphale wasn’t sure why Crowley had picked the Globe. Most celebrities went to their places of work, or their old schools, or shepherded their extended families into the same cramped living room to talk them up. But then most celebrities were, Aziraphale admitted, rather dull. He briefly entertained the notion that Crowley had picked the Globe for Aziraphale’s benefit, but admitted that if that were true, he would probably have chosen The Savoy and had the BBC claim their meal as a business expense. No, there was a reason why here, of all places. Whether or not he would find out what that reason was remained to be seen. Every detail of Crowley’s personal life, his motivations, his thoughts, his preferences, was a limpet wrested from the salt-drenched rock that was Crowley’s personality. 

In the meantime, Aziraphale viewed his surroundings with interest. He would have quite liked a proper tour; but he was an entrenched Londoner, and most tours carried an unfortunate infestation of tour _ists._ They had passed a Minnesotan couple on their way in, remarking in awestruck tones on how well the building had been preserved.

_“Oh my gosh, Harold. Just think— we’re walking the same halls as Shakespeare himself. Ooh, I’ve got goosebumps!”_

_“Incredible. Treading the same boards. Passing the same gift shop.”_

_“I don’t think they had a gift shop back then, honey.”_

_“Well, heck, of course they did, how else would they make their money?”_

Aziraphale had been about to tell them that Shakespeare would have had a hard time turning a profit here, seeing as the entire building was a replica built in 1997. Fortunately, their theatre liaison whisked them away before he could. She had a walkie-talkie strapped to her hip, a name tag that said Viola, a T-shirt that said ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE. Force of habit that propelled her through a condensed version of the tour that Crowley blatantly tuned out, only tuning back in to thoroughly embarrass himself.

“Is that your Shakespeare name, then?” Crowley asked, pointing to her badge when she paused for breath.

Viola blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“Viola, I mean.”

Viola smiled in the polite, confused way of public-facing workers everywhere. “No, it’s, ah. My real name.”

“Oh.” Crowley shifted awkwardly. “Sorry, I thought— I thought maybe when you worked here you got issued a Shakespeare name. Like, maybe there was someone wandering around with a little badge that said ‘Falstaff’. You, know, like er. Nuns.”

Aziraphale allowed his eyes to flutter closed for a brief moment, as he pondered once again the nature of his affliction. Dear, professional Viola gave them a look far more understanding than they deserved. “I see. No, I’m a staff member at a theatre, Mr. Crowley, I didn’t take the veil.”

“Right.” Crowley nodded. “Yep.” 

“Big fan of you guys, though. And the show,” she said hurriedly, as if to soften the blow. Crowley looked agonised.

As soon as she deposited them onstage, Aziraphale started to giggle.

“It wasn’t that funny,” Crowley grumbled.

“It was, rather,” gasped Aziraphale. “The poor staff, walking around with ‘Dogberry’ on their lapels.”

Crowley’s scowl changed angles, and became a grudging smile. “Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Sir Toby Belch. Gravedigger #1.”

“You’re missing an obvious one,” said Aziraphale.

“Am I?”

“Think _A Midsummer Night’s Dream."_

“Titania? Puck? Oh, you— oh, fuck off, that’s so cheap of you,” said Crowley, and Aziraphale dissolved further into laughter, taking Crowley along with him. “I’m putting a moratorium on those jokes. I am. I can’t believe I ever thought you had _class."_

Now, half an hour later, they were still waiting for their small crew to get sorted. There was some sort of issue with the mics, and the ever-helpful Viola had gone to fetch more tea while they waited. Someone was whistling Simon and Garfunkel off-key; the sound was strangely pleasant. Aziraphale had always liked being on a set, whether it was stage or television. He would tell people that it was the charm of being around a great many people doing a great many small things to make a production fly. In reality, he was fairly sure he just liked watching other people work when he himself didn’t have to. 

“Would you like to know something fun?” Aziraphale asked.

Crowley was now almost lying on the stage, basking in a November sun that was more light than heat. Aziraphale was fairly sure his eyes were closed behind his sunglasses.

“Sure.”

“It used to cost a penny to get in as a groundling. You paid an extra penny if you wanted a seat,” he gestured to the raised, sheltered area that ringed the pit, “and an extra penny if you wanted a cushion. They used to collect all the money in a special box, and that box was put in its own special room for safe-keeping, and _that room,”_ he smiled triumphantly, “was called the Box Office!”

“Huh,” said Crowley.

“It’s where we get the term!” 

Crowley made a half-hearted noise. Aziraphale felt rather put out.

“You don’t seem that impressed.”

“No, no, I’m interested,” he said, “Love a bit of trivia as much as the next guy, love your history lessons. I’m just thinking. The first one burned down, you know.” 

“Hm?”

Crowley propped himself up on his elbows, staring at the frescoed awning above them. Aziraphale duly admired the line of his throat.

“I said the first one burned down. The Globe. Injudicious use of a cannon during _Henry VIII,_ whole lot went poof.” He flicked his fingers to emulate the conflagration. “Thatched roofs weren’t half a bad idea, weren’t they? I mean, _really."_

“Wasn’t even one of the better plays,” agreed Aziraphale. 

“Then the second one, well, the _second one_ went the way of all the others, didn’t it. Closed by the Puritans.” He grinned. “Can’t imagine why. Though it could have been all the debauchery, cross-dressing, heresy, sodomy— take your pick.”

“Hmm, I can only pick one?” Aziraphale murmured, and was rewarded with one of Crowley’s sharp, knowing grins. Flirting with Crowley really was easy, and fun, and it was a good thing Aziraphale had decided nothing untoward was going to happen, or it might be dangerous.

“So here we are,” said Crowley. “Round three. Can’t keep a good Elizabethan structure down.”

He lapsed back into silence. Aziraphale waited for his _denouement._

“Your point?” he prompted.

“Wossat?”

“I think you had a point, somewhere in there.”

Crowley shrugged. He looked back up at the sky, or the gilded awning of the stage, or the audience in tier on tier stretching up above him. “Just thinking about comebacks,” he said.

A single clap rang around the theatre. “Right!” said Sakshi. “We all ready?”

Crowley brushed imaginary dust from his trousers. “As I’ll ever be,” he drawled. Their audience consisted of a location manager, camera operator, understudy camera operator, boom operator, a few general dogsbodies and Sakshi, an envoy from _Strictly_ whose entire job seemed to be to coax biographical information out of Crowley against his will.

“So, Crowley. This is an unusual choice. Why did you decide to come here?” she asked.

Crowley shrugged. “I’ve always liked the Globe,” he said. 

Sakshi nodded encouragingly. Crowley shrugged again. Sakshi waited, perhaps hoping her silence would encourage Crowley to talk more. When it did not, she cast a sideways glance at Aziraphale; which was unfair, he felt, as it wasn’t his fault he had such a recalcitrant partner. She cleared her throat. 

“Alright. Er. Aziraphale, you ask that question— nobody wants to see me, this is meant to be you two, really— Crowley, you give your response.”

Aziraphale smiled, somewhat conscious of the camera. “So, Crowley. Why have you brought us here today?” 

Crowley gave the same response, only this time he added “it’s nice” on the end. Aziraphale frowned. 

“Are you a fan of Shakespeare?” prompted Sakshi, a little desperately.

“As much as the next bloke, I suppose. I like the funny ones. The histories are boring, and the tragedies sort of lost their _lustre_ after the invention of film, didn’t they? Hard to get excited about a king going mental when you can watch Daniel Craig do parkour on a crane.”

Sakshi didn’t bother getting Aziraphale to repeat that one.

“Alright, so, moving on—”

“Sorry, Sakshi,” said Aziraphale quickly, “could we please do that once more? I don’t quite like how I sounded in my take.”

Crowley gave him an annoyed look, probably wondering how he had managed to fluff a nine-word sentence, but Aziraphale just smiled placidly. This was all performative. This was Crowley being obstinate and flippant because someone had asked him to be genuine without giving him several day’s notice and a written warning. Aziraphale leaned against the edge of the stage, closer to Crowley than before. 

Sakshi nodded.

“So, why here?” asked Aziraphale, more casually. Crowley looked down at him like he suspected foul play. 

“I like it here,” he said, cautiously. 

“Most people—and I’ve done quite a few of these, by now _—most_ people pick a work environment, or somewhere with a familial connection.”

“Eh, that’s most people. Far as I’m concerned, I popped into existence in my twenties.”

“Hmm.” Aziraphale plucked the orange from Crowley’s hand and tossed it experimentally. It was strangely satisfying. “I must confess, when I do try to imagine you as a child, I can only picture a babe in sunglasses, floating amongst the bulrushes by the Thames.”

“There’s no bulrushes anywhere _near_ the Thames.”

“Amongst the takeaway boxes and empty bottles, then,” said Aziraphale. He threw the orange high enough for Crowley to catch. _“‘From such inauspicious origins, Anthony J Crowley’s star rose—’”_

“Oh, shut up. I picked here because— well, I can’t go back to the set of Shakespearean, can I, it doesn’t exist anymore. I knew I wanted to pick a theatre. When you become an actor, you get a chance to... reinvent yourself, yeah? You’ve got to do it continuously for work, but you can do it privately, as well. You choose who you want to be. _Shakespearean_ gave me a chance to invent myself, and The Globe— the original Globe, and theatres like it— gave people the chance to invent themselves, too.”

Aziraphale hummed. “Gave a glover’s son the chance to write for royalty.”

“Gave people like me a place.” Crowley stopped, screwing his face up in disgust. “Ugh. Should we cut that last bit?”

“If you’d like,” said Sakshi, smiling. “Personally, I think it’s great, though.”

The unpleasant business of being known out of the way, Crowley relaxed, and they talked about the show, their progress with the dance, #TeamDelightful, and who would win in a fight between Mercutio and Macbeth _(“No, see, Mercutio is built for speed, he’s wiry—” “his physical stature is never mentioned—” “well he sounds wiry, Macbeth sounds slow and lumbering—” “and yet he won every battle he ever fought, bar one, whereas Mercutio dies in his first duel—”)_. By the end of it, Sakshi was singing Aziraphale’s praises with her eyebrows, the crew had a sweet and easily condensed segment, and Aziraphale had one very battered orange.

“One last thing, while we’re here,” said Sakshi. “Seems a shame to put you on a stage and not have you do a little Shakespeare, doesn’t it?”

Crowley had to have been expecting this, but he groaned theatrically all the same. “Oh, come _on,"_ he whined.

“Go on, then,” Aziraphale said, nudging his knee. “Give us a _To Be."_

“Yes!” Sakshi waved Viola over. “We’ll grab you a copy of Hamlet—”

“Oh, no need,” said Crowley easily, “I brought my own.” The ham.

He leapt upright, and gave a few experimental paces of the stage. He looked natural up there. But then, he always had. Aziraphale remembered what it had been like to act opposite Crowley, though it had been brief and long ago. It had been like throwing something live, back and forth. It was getting to be like that again, with dancing; like every time they touched, they became a closed circuit, and sparks danced.

“Right,” Crowley said, once he’d finished testing the boards for structural integrity or whatever nonsense he was pretending to do. “Oh, angel, can you hold these?” 

Crowley knelt at the edge of the stage, and passed the glasses down to Aziraphale. Light glinted on his copper hair, fetching against the blue of the sky. He winked, and in Aziraphale’s momentary fluster, swapped his sunglasses for the orange.

And then he was Hamlet. 

_“‘I have, of late,’”_ he began, _“‘and wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth…’”_

Aziraphale, who had been expecting _To Be,_ was thrown by the sudden launch into _“what piece of work is Man”,_ and so it took him a moment to recognise the volume Crowley was reading from. It was slim, pale blue, and in perfect condition save for some light foxing at the corners.

_That’s from my bookshop,_ he thought. Then, indignantly, _That’s from my_ bookshop! _He pinched it!_

But the indignation faded as he watched Crowley. He had an odd thought, one he had not had for many years: Crowley was a good actor. His Hamlet was a slouching, scuffing, neurotic soul, filled with restless energy. He ran a hand through his hair, he struggled not to bite his nails, he signalled, with a certain graceful wrist movement, a latent queerness; and he looked, strangely, baffled. Aziraphale had seen many performances of Hamlet, but he had never really been able to put himself in the protagonist’s shoes. A fault of a role, perhaps, that relied much on the character’s changeability, incomprehensibility, and total inability to stick to one course of action. Crowley’s Hamlet, for the brief moment he occupied the stage, radiated a certain puzzlement, as if the world was a tumultuous and cruel place, and he had not expected it to be so. He played the Prince as a man new-come to misery, confused and alone, wondering why the certainties of his life had been so overturned. 

Aziraphale never wanted to stop watching him. True, he was biased, but every gesture enthralled him. His body, pacing the stage, was the only forward motion in the world; everything else, the people, the theatre, the blue November day, was static, so much painted scenery. There is nothing like watching someone do something well to rev one’s engines, and it hit him all over again, how much he liked and wanted this person. Had he not promised himself _not_ to act upon it, he would quite happily pull himself onstage, grab Crowley by the lapels of that very nice coat, and kiss him before crew and camera, here under the eye of God. In fact, that coat would rather come in handy. The boards of the stage looked fairly well-sanded, but he would hate for either of them to get splinters. Aziraphale’s mind wandered as he contemplated how much it would cost to hire the Globe for half an hour, no staff, no questions. A few first editions, perhaps. 

_“‘In form and moving how express and admirable, in action, how like an angel, in apprehension, how like a god. Man delights not me—’"_ and then Crowley, pretending to just notice Aziraphale, started. _“—‘nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.”_

_“‘My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts,’”_ murmured Aziraphale, thus drafted into the part of Rosencrantz and making him an utter liar. 

Crowley crouched at the edge of the promontory. _"'Why’d you laugh, then, when I said ‘man delights not me’?’"_ His tone was light and teasing. 

_“‘To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what Lenten entertainment this player shall receive from you.’”_

_Bugger._

Aziraphale felt his heart catch in his throat. That wasn’t the line. It was _“the players”,_ not _“this player”._ A small and reckless change, but one with unmissable implications, if one only knew where to look. Crowley caught it, because of course he did. One eyebrow raised. Aziraphale felt himself flush, but stared Crowley down—or up, Crowley was several feet above him—determined to make this seem like an arch joke rather than what it actually was, which was a thoroughly pedestrian Freudian slip. 

Viola saved him with applause.

“That was brill!” she cried, and soon the whole crew was clapping. Crowley waved the praise away, doing a graceful, mocking bow that made his coat sweep dramatically and Aziraphale swoon. He dropped offstage, landing mere inches from Aziraphale. 

“Well?” Crowley asked, gaze fixed and unblinking on Aziraphale’s face.

Aziraphale sniffed, willing his body temperature to drop somewhere around normal. “I have some notes,” he said casually, “but not bad, all things considered.”

* * *

The sun was setting at the hoary hour of four pm, and it was turning Aziraphale’s hair candy-floss pink. That seemed appropriate, to Crowley. Something about this day felt heady and unreal, like it existed outside of the regular flow of space or shape of time. After their business at the Globe was done and dusted Aziraphale had looked at him and he had looked back, and by some silent agreement they had both wandered out into the world on foot, as if they did this every day, as if there wasn’t anywhere else they could be. Crowley felt he and Aziraphale had sidestepped out of narrative for a moment, into a shining, Instagram-filtered liminal space where the points were made up and the rules didn’t matter. He felt like— like if he were to start flipping a coin over and over, it would come up whatever side he called, every time. 

“Do you really think all that about Shakespeare?” asked Aziraphale. 

Trust _that_ to be the thing he was stuck on. Honestly.

“What, about him being a bit dull?” 

Aziraphale’s brow furrowed, as if as if he was convinced Crowley's lack of enthusiasm for the world's greatest playwright _had_ to be a bit. 

“Yeah, I mean, I don’t mind a bit of the Bard now and then, but five hours of _Hamlet_ is a bit of a stretch. _'Not for an age, but for a long time’_ is more like it.” He chuckled at his own joke.

“What about Macbeth? What about Othello? Surely even _you_ can’t malign _Lear."_

Crowley rolled his eyes. “Right, and for all those, I raise you _Pericles, The Merry Wives of Windsor,_ _Titus Andronicus—”_

“Isn’t that like—” Aziraphale’s lips thinned at the effort, “like picking a band’s B-sides and comparing them to their greatest hits?”

“Look at you, using music metaphors!”

Aziraphale huffed. It was getting colder, and his breath clouded the air. “And the sonnets? I suppose you think they’re utter tosh, as well?”

“It’s just “I fancy you” said in a hundred and fifty different ways, angel. Now _Donne,_ on the other hand, there’s a poet I can get into. The shag-happy God-botherer. Not one sonnet of Old Bill’s is equal to _'batter my heart’,_ and I’ll tell you that for free.”

They had begun walking along Southbank, Tate-wards, each in tacit agreement not to mention it to the other. Drifting, that’s what they were doing. It was a good place to drift. There was nothing like London in autumn, except maybe London in summer, or winter, or spring. Crowley could smell the Thames, which in defiance of travel writers was neither pleasant nor unpleasant, just wet, and the savoury base notes from the food vans that parked up every evening to attract the theatre crowds. There was a lot going on, this Friday. There was a lot going every Friday, really, and on every other day ending in Y. That was London. He could hear three different buskers from his position and they all sounded godawful. That was London, too. And the human statue they were both ignoring, and the ten different types of fried food they could smell, and the competing soundtracks from the riverside restaurants, and in amongst all that stuff here _he_ was, right now, with the one person he wanted to be blanking human statues with. He caught Aziraphale sniffing hopefully at the air and steered them through the eddying crowd to the churro van beneath a shivering tree.

“Won’t we spoil our dinner?” Aziraphale said, which they both knew was only a token protest.

Crowley resolved then and there to stop at every greasy and decadent food van between here and Waterloo. 

“No rules today,” he said.

***

“So. Are we going to talk about your theft—”

“—liberation—”

“—of one of my volumes, yesterday?”

They were nearing a more crowded area just past the Tate that had been bottlenecked slightly by construction work. It would have made more sense to walk single file, rather than two abreast, but Aziraphale was loath to give up their position, the rhythm they had built. A young person with a large iced coffee in one hand and a phone in the other was walking briskly towards the two of them, head down, staring intently at whatever was onscreen. Aziraphale willed them to look up. 

“This old thing?” Crowley pulled the copy of Hamlet from the inside of his coat, where Aziraphale was convinced he must have pockets big enough to hold an iPad or several _other_ pilfered books. “May have swiped it from the shop, yeah.”

“Why, pray tell?”

“Partly to see if I could without you noticing,” _of course,_ “and partly because, well. Maybe I wanted something to read.” Crowley had spotted the imperceptive pedestrian, too, and conspicuously did not move.

“You don’t read.”

“How dare you. Learned my _alpha beta gamma’s_ like everyone else.”

Aziraphale felt his face begin to show his amusement, and frowned harder to compensate. How inconvenient, to be born with a visage that was made to smile at the slightest provocation. “You, dear, are a biblioklept.”

“Only on Sundays.” The young person still had not looked up from their phone. Aziraphale glanced at Crowley. One of them would have to move out of their way, and betray their London pedigree to do so. Crowley picked up speed, as if determined to reach the collision faster. 

“It’s the name for someone who steals books. In the old days I could have cut off a hand.”

“What, this one?” Crowley waved it in front of his face. “An _elitist,_ that’s what you are. Hoarding knowledge in your ivory tower.” He opened the book, mirroring the position of the youth, who was now feet away. He licked one finger and went to turn a page. _“‘Give thy thoughts no tongue, nor any unproportioned thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means—’”_

Just as their paths were about to violently intersect, Aziraphale pulled Crowley out of the way.

“Out of interest,” he said calmly, “did you happen to check the _ex-librīs_ of that particular volume?”

Crowley flicked to the front. He blanched when he saw the name written beneath _From the Personal Library Of:_

“Oh,” he said.

“Oh indeed. Would you care to take a guess at how much that is worth?”

Crowley swallowed. “No, actually, think I’m alright,” he said.

Aziraphale told him the number anyway. Crowley looked as though he would rather have lost his hand.

***

There was a banner going up at the National Theatre for a new production of _The Visit_ by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, a play Crowley had never seen. The poster informed him that it was _‘adapted for the 21st century and directed by Tony Kushner’,_ which he normally wouldn’t care about, except that Aziraphale stopped dead. 

_“The Visit,”_ he murmured. He took a small notebook out of an inside pocket, the sort with a little pen attached, and presumably began to scribble down the details. “I must remember to see that.”

“Huh. Hugo Weaving’s in it,” said Crowley, reading the cast list.

“We should go,” said Aziraphale, still writing.

“Yeah, I’ll take you,” said Crowley, without even thinking about it. 

“Wonderful.”

The play wouldn’t be until January, but that didn’t seem worth acknowledging in the moment.

***

In the undercroft—a designated skate space that forever seemed under threat of being shut down—a bunch of teens were doing tricks. They stopped for a moment to watch and Crowley tried to show off what meagre knowledge on the subject he’d retained, explaining the names of the different jumps and flips the kids made look so easy. A little one— it was hard to tell their ages when they were that small, Crowley maintained— managed to balance her board on the lip of a ramp, to rapturous applause from her friends. Her smile was missing two front teeth. Crowley felt Aziraphale nudge him.

“I bet you ten pounds you can’t still do an _oliver,”_ said Aziraphale.

***

There was some sort of premiere going on at the BFI, and since it was in direct proximity to a van selling roasted chestnuts (a little early in the year, perhaps, but not unwelcome) they stopped for a gander. Aziraphale tried to guess the film’s genre; judging from the poster, it was another romance set in another uninteresting century with another lead who was as compelling to look at as a freshly painted fence. Crowley leant against the railing beside him, throwing his chestnuts in the air and catching them in his mouth, and doing a terrible job of covering when he missed. Aziraphale hid a smile, watching him, as he had become accustomed, from the corner of his eye. There is a kind of transformation that takes place when you become attracted to someone, where all their little flaws and bad angles become very dear. Crowley had a too-sharp nose, and a thin mouth, and ears that would stick out if they weren’t perpetually covered by hair, but all that, in Aziraphale’s opinion, made him fascinating to look at. His gaze could not find purchase on the smooth and polished people on the red carpet, lithe and lissom and posing at the angle their advisers had determined most flattering. It wasn’t their fault, he knew. They had to keep up appearances. It was part of the job. 

It was part of theirs, too.

“He owes me fifty quid,” remarked Crowley, pointing out a certain actor. He threw a chestnut, failed to catch it, and pretended it had fallen from the sky. “The woman in the blue Dior, she’s a shoplifter, by the way. And those two there, they’ve been having an affair for years.” He began to list off the various sins of each actor as they passed through the gauntlet of press and fans. “Bastard. Toerag. Anger management problems. Secret lovechild. Nicks all the little pesto and goat’s cheese pastries on set. Diva. Despot. Scientologist. She’s alright. _Her,_ though, she’s a piece of work...” 

Aziraphale munched his chestnuts and tried to look like he wasn’t enthralled by the gossip. There was a certain quality in Crowley’s voice he rarely heard.

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

“You can try,” answered Crowley, glancing sidelong at him. 

“Do you ever miss it?”

Crowley snorted. “Do I _miss_ it?” A chestnut pinged off his sunglasses. “Do I miss being monitored all the bloody time? Being micromanaged? Shuttled hither, thither and yon? “Right, Crowley, today you’re in Belize,” and “whoops, never mind, we need you in Edinburgh instead”? Constantly chasing after the next job? Dealing with old Beez’s mood swings and petty grievances? Worrying that everything I do, everything I say, is going to get back to someone with the power to make my life a living hell? Lying, and dodging questions, and fudging facts? Hanging around with the vapid, selfish and greedy, watching people chase after the holy trinity of money and power and sex? Feeling like my whole life is one long performance?” he paused. “Oh, every bloody day.”

“I thought so,” said Aziraphale.

***

“Do you play an instrument?”

The question had arrived out of a quiet moment, in which they were both enjoying an unseasonal ice cream. Crowley blinked. “Sorry?”

“Do you play an instrument.”

“...Yeah.”

Aziraphale sighed. “I suspected as much.”

Crowley felt a bizarre sense of failure. “And that’s… a problem?”

“No, it’s just, so do I. That’s no good. We can’t both play instruments.”

“Why not?”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes, as if Crowley were a great fool, which he supposed he was. He had finished his ice cream, and took a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his hands. “Well, balance. The problem with being seen as a matched set is that people divvy up the flaws and qualities between you. He’s rash, he’s careful. He’s flippant, he’s serious. He’s fastidious, he’s innovative.”

“Good cop, bad cop?” suggested Crowley. 

“Precisely. I’m the good one, you see. You’re the bad one.”

Crowley feigned a pout. “Why am I the bad one?” 

“Well, aesthetics, dear boy, you do wear a lot of black. But I’m not just talking about that. It’s more that— you can’t be pedantic, because I’m the pedantic one, even though I happened to _misremember_ the release date of a Bond film the other day and you nearly bit my head off—“

“Hotheaded, that’s me, I suppose. I get that one. That’s fine, though, you can have icy.”

“Hmm. Which of us gets to be debonair?”

“Oh, that’s you, I’ve got charming.” Crowley licked his ice cream, mostly to see if Aziraphale watched him do it. His friend’s eyes flicked to Crowley’s mouth and away. If Crowley weren’t the designated _bad cop,_ maybe he’d have explained to Aziraphale the benefits of a good pair of sunglasses.

“Wily, too,” said Aziraphale, with faux disapproval. Then he plucked the ice cream from Crowley’s fingers and began to lick it himself. Crowley watched his tongue from behind the safety of his tinted lenses.

“Underhanded,” said Crowley.

***

They were approaching the end of the evening, Aziraphale just knew it. It was apparent in the crisp taste in the air, the heaviness of the night that now blended into the London skyline, the way Crowley had slowed almost to a halt as they approached the steps leading up to the Golden Jubilee Bridges. Aziraphale felt a glimmer of the same selfish feeling that had carried them on from the Globe through to this point. Just another moment, that was all he would ask. One more minute here, one more hour, one more lifetime to exist in this nebulous space. Just two people, walking through the heart of the city they loved.

Managing to make it to the top of the stairs, all conversation seemed to have left them both behind. It was pleasant in a way it would never have been even a mere few weeks ago. To let life pass around them, jostle them together, while they said nothing, just aware of being in one another’s company and the distant threat of rain on the horizon. They made it to the middle of the bridge on the Embankment side and here Aziraphale stopped, leaning against the railings. Crowley followed suit without question, for once, looking out across the water.

“Do you know,” Aziraphale said, almost too quiet to be heard in the din of the city around them, but knowing Crowley would be listening, “this is possibly my favourite spot in the whole of London.”

He expected a jibe— some comment on the modernity of it all versus his antiquated sensibilities, a dig about the lack of dusty old bookshops in sight, or perhaps a pointed look at the busker currently strumming a broken guitar with an empty ballpoint pen casing not ten feet away from them. Nothing came. Crowley was watching him, curious to the last. Aziraphale, emboldened by his attention, pressed on.

“It’s hard to explain, really. Just, just a feeling I’ve always had, every time I cross over this particular bridge. To realise that I can alight either side and find endless delights— streets my feet will never have touched, restaurants I’ll never have eaten in, people I’ll have never met before. Standing here, looking out over only a very small part of it, knowing that just around that curve in the river up ahead is where we were, and the next time I step off this bridge and head off that way it will be different. It can’t be anything _but_ different. I’ve walked this route a thousand times before, and I’m certain I’ll walk it a thousand more, but there will never be another night like this one.” 

_Steady,_ he thought, _steady now._

“It’s something of an honour, wouldn’t you agree? To stand here, between two halves of the same flawed, strange, beautiful place and know that you can _belong_ to something so ever-changing. That you can find who you are here, and keep at it, and never become boring or bored, because how could you? Something so alive, always racing its way towards the future, shouldn’t be able to feel like home, but it does. It does, and it always has. It just feels— it’s simply—” he tried his hardest to articulate, but as his hands fluttered through the air Aziraphale felt the thought slipping between his fingers. He turned to Crowley, with the ridiculous notion that he might catch whatever it was that Aziraphale had failed to grasp, but the expression on his face gave Aziraphale pause. 

“Oh, I’ve— I’ve rambled on a bit, haven’t I?” Aziraphale laughed softly, trying to clear the tension he could feel in the air. “It’s silly, I know. Much better views elsewhere. I mean, really, you only have to turn around and see that awful ferris wheel monstrosity, _looming_ at you, not to mention the—”

“Angel,” Crowley stopped him with a single word, exasperated and kind, then clearly thought the better of whatever had been on the tip of his tongue to follow it. He swallowed it down, and then looked away towards the end of the night. It was here. Aziraphale had tried his hardest to fight it off, but it had slipped past him when he wasn’t looking. 

“You— you mentioned something about a plant care book, earlier in the week,” Aziraphale said, suddenly. Crowley looked a little surprised by the non-sequitur, but he battled bravely on regardless. “Perhaps I could retrieve it now? I would hate to think of dear Anathema II suffering one more night at my inexperienced hands.”

“I can just bring it to work tomorrow, Aziraphale, you don’t have to come all that way just for a—”

_“Please,_ Crowley,” Aziraphale said. “Allow me to walk you home?”

There was a moment where he was certain Crowley would say no. That he would see through this for the absolutely ridiculous request it was, and refuse. It wouldn’t have been unreasonable of him, to deny Aziraphale this prolonging of the inevitable. _No rules_ only applied to their lives outside of this night, the here and now— it did not, however, give them _carte blanche_ when it came to each other. Aziraphale, not wanting to lead Crowley on a merry chase with no intention whatsoever of letting himself be caught at the end of it all, prepared himself for the oncoming rejection.

“Well, I suppose it is on the way,” Crowley grinned, lying right through his dearly crooked teeth. 

* * *

> where r u? [ **21:46** ]
> 
> [ **21:47** ] I was just about to ask you the same thing  
> [ **21:47** ] Spooky 🔮   
> [ **21:48** ] I’m taking it filming at the Globe went well?
> 
> yep ws gr8, did a monologue, every1 cried [ **21:48** ]  
> shakey’s ghost ws summoned [ **21:48** ]  
> he bloody loved it [ **21:48** ]  
> hv u gone home 4 the night? [ **21:48** ]
> 
> [ **21:49** ] I am at home, yes.
> 
> excellent, cya l8r x [ **21:49** ]

* * *

The lift hummed on its interminable journey to the top floor. Like most lifts, the interior was outfitted with mirrors, on the assumption that anyone climbing into a suspended metal box a) did not wish to be reminded that they were in a small metal box and b) would like to use the opportunity to see themselves in as many unflattering angles as possible while they were in there.

_“First floor... Second floor... Third floor...”_ said the pre-recorded voice of the lift, cool and feminine and blankly English. Aziraphale stared at the speaker so he wouldn’t have to see the thousands of versions of he and Crowley stretching away into infinity either side. They were quiet, both of them. Or all of them. Now that they were in a confined space together, there was obviously something in the air that must have been following them about all night, but in the open expanse of London it hadn’t felt so _pressing._

_“Fifth floor... Sixth Floor... Fourth floor...”_

Aziraphale squinted at the speaker, momentarily thrown. “Do you know the architecture of your building doesn’t make sense?”

Crowley glanced in the direction of Aziraphale’s gaze, where the LED display beneath the speaker was now insisting they were on the second floor again. “Ah, ignore that,’ he said. “Lift’s dodgy. Software.” As if this was a thorough explanation.

_“Eighth floor,”_ said the lift. In a move that was just typical of him, Crowley stabbed the button for his floor several times in quick succession, as if this would make them arrive faster. 

“It’s not just the lift,” said Aziraphale. “Which way is North?” 

“Which— Do I look like a person who carries a compass around? How would I know? _Why_ would I know?”

“Very well, then, which direction is the street we entered from?”

Crowley hesitated, then pointed a finger downwards with a smug expression. Aziraphale bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. 

“You don’t find any of it confusing?” pressed Aziraphale.

_“Firth floor,"_ burbled the lift.

“See, not confusing at all. We’re on the Firth floor.”

Aziraphale did laugh, then, and started at the sound of his voice in the confined space. He had the strangest thought that they should keep their voices down, so as not to disturb the lift lady further. 

“How long have you lived here?” he whispered.

“Close to a decade, I reckon.”

“Ah, well, that explains it,” said Aziraphale confidently, hoping Crowley would take the bait.

“What d’you mean?”

Aziraphale gave him a smug look of his own. “Well, physically, you don’t make much sense either. Must have rubbed off on the architecture.”

“Oh, that’s—”

_"Thecond Floor.”_

“—charming,” muttered Crowley.

“I remember reading somewhere that you have—what was it— _‘hair by Rossetti and a body by MC Escher.’”_

Crowley’s head turned, ever so slightly, in Aziraphale’s direction.

“Never had any complaints,” he murmured.

The atmosphere inside the lift felt thicker, all of a sudden. _Syrupy,_ was the first word that came to Aziraphale’s mind. There was a garbled noise from the speaker, a defeated sigh of static, and then, silence.

“Where’d you read that, anyway?” Crowley asked, casually.

“In a magazine. In a review, I think. For _Saunter."_ Aziraphale felt himself flush. He had, he could admit to himself, spent more than a little time in the previous week perusing Crowley’s back catalogue, and then reading reviews of said back catalogue. He hoped Crowley wouldn’t notice, but it was hard not to when his expression was reflected back a thousand times on all sides. Crowley turned to look at him properly. Aziraphale could feel his gaze on every inch of exposed skin like a low-grade sunburn.

“Oh, you read the _fan magazines,"_ said Crowley teasingly.

Aziraphale took a moment to gather himself, before turning to meet Crowley’s gaze. “Was that a _Singin’ in the Rain_ reference?”

For a beat they looked at each other in the box of the lift. Aziraphale knew. Crowley knew. Aziraphale knew that Crowley knew, and Crowley knew that Aziraphale knew, and the moment was recursive, a reflection of a reflection of a reflection. 

_But nothing is going to happen,_ thought Aziraphale confidently, despite the pulse hammering in his throat, despite the matching glow he could see on Crowley’s skin in what should have been deeply unflattering fluorescent light.

The elevator pinged.

Aziraphale let Crowley out first. This was a familiar scene to Aziraphale, in many ways. The dark corridor, the heavy silence, the short walk to an empty flat behind someone with clever hands. It was a good thing, Aziraphale reminded himself, that he had already made his decision not to do anything, otherwise this would be a very precarious situation indeed. Their day had been so perfect, but Aziraphale had always been greedy. He felt like he was playing beyond the end of the game, spinning out the day, and the excuse of his still being here into a thinner and thinner thread. 

It didn’t take much, in the end. 

“I’ll just,” said Crowley, rummaging in the pocket of his coat. He pulled out his keys and jingled them in one hand. Aziraphale watched the way Crowley’s hair brushed against the collar of his coat, how it parted at the nape of his neck as he bent towards the lock. 

“D’you want some coffee?” asked Crowley, over his shoulder.

“I don’t drink coffee,” said Aziraphale quietly. 

“Oh, no?” said Crowley, obviously feigning surprise. 

“In all those interminable rom-coms you were in,” noted Aziraphale, “Coffee is something of a euphemism. It’s the phrase they use when they want to invite someone to their flat for another reason.”

Crowley turned, leaving his key in the lock. Aziraphale watched the easy way he leaned in the doorframe, a person _built_ to lean in door frames, and on tables, and against railings, never to stand straight or be proper or worry about consequences.

“Yeah?” said Crowley, low enough to send sparks dancing across Aziraphale’s skin. 

“Yes,” he said, and then he was pushing Crowley against the door, and he was kissing him with more fervour than he’d ever kissed anyone in his life. Crowley’s head thunked gently against the wood. Aziraphale’s right hand slid automatically into position on Crowley’s waist, and his left, not immediately finding Crowley’s, dragged along his jaw and buried itself into his hair. The noise Crowley made at that would stay with him for a long, long time. Crowley grabbed Aziraphale’s lapels and hauled him in, breaking them out of any semblance of closed position. There was no voice in his head, anymore, there was no lead and follow— just a loose collection of impulses, observations that were both distant and immediate, a fog of warmth and desire and happiness. _Mouth,_ he thought, as Crowley bit gently at his lip. _Hands,_ he thought, as Crowley’s fingers hooked into his belt loops to pull him closer— which, if either of them had been in any state of rational thought, they would have realised was impossible, but God loves a trier. _Hips,_ thought Aziraphale, immediately afterwards, defying impossibility and pressing closer still, until Crowley shifted and slipped one slim thigh between Aziraphale’s. 

In this sudden snap of released tension, Aziraphale realised two things simultaneously, things that he had been keeping at bay for far longer than he would care to admit to himself.

The first was that they were absolutely going to bed together. This very minute, if they had their way.

The second was that, for Aziraphale, there would be nothing casual about it. 

Aziraphale felt his eyelashes brush against the lenses of Crowley’s sunglasses. He pulled away. There was a second of silent understanding as the two of them breathed into each other’s space, one of Aziraphale’s thumbs swiping automatically over Crowley’s cheekbone. Crowley raised a hand towards his sunglasses, then stopped. Slowly, he pulled Aziraphale’s hand from its anchor point in his hair and moved it to the arm of his glasses. The stab of desire that went through Aziraphale must have shown on his face, because Crowley grinned like he had won something. Aziraphale eased the sunglasses off, noting the way Crowley’s blown pupils tracked their progress as he folded them and slipped them into his coat pocket. 

“Do you want,” said Crowley, and the answer to that question, for Aziraphale, had never been no.

“Yes,” he said. 

They both moved at the exact same time, causing Crowley’s head to hit the door again. Aziraphale laughed a little, into his mouth. Crowley laughed, too, then grabbed one of Aziraphale’s hands in a petulant little motion, and slid it back into his hair once more, letting Aziraphale’s fingers tangle through it to cushion the back of his head. With effort, Crowley managed to extract his other hand from where it was trying to excavate Aziraphale out of layers upon layers of clothing and scrabbled at the door behind him, searching for where he’d left his keys dangling from the lock. _Here we go,_ thought Aziraphale, as the door handle rattled, the door swung open, and—

And there was Anathema, in novelty pyjamas and with a toothbrush in her mouth, holding onto the handle on the other side.

* * *

Crowley had had this nightmare before. 

Granted, he was usually wearing considerably less clothing by this point, and there were far too few sentient houseplants walking about for the next bit to go the way it usually did, but he’d definitely, _definitely_ had this nightmare before.

“What are you _doing here,”_ he hissed at Anathema.

Anathema blinked at him, then looked past Crowley to the spot where Aziraphale might still be but he couldn’t be certain because—even though he still had a handful of the man’s coat in his grasp, and could still feel the Halley’s Comet of heat the man’s thumb had traced across his cheek—if he had to look Aziraphale in the face at this exact moment in time he knew he might not survive it. 

“You’re not Newt,” she said, immediately clarifying everything.

Crowley felt Aziraphale’s grip start to slide from the back of his head, which was absolutely unforgivable.

_“Why the hell would I be Newt?!”_ Crowley said, in a completely normal octave and tone, and grabbed Aziraphale’s wrist to stop the whole hand-situation from devolving any further. 

“He left his glasses, I thought—”

“He was _here?”_

“Crowley, perhaps I should—”

“Just, just—” Crowley extricated himself from Aziraphale’s hold, twisting himself so he still didn’t have to look him in the face. _I can fix this_ , he thought, frantically, _I can fix this, please, just give me some time._ “Aziraphale, will you excuse us for _one_ moment.”

Anathema started to say something else but he grabbed her by her non-dentally occupied hand and dragged her behind the kitchen door before she had the chance. She had clearly gotten over the initial shock, because her eyes were wild, and filled with rage, and with the toothpaste around her mouth she looked quite feral. She brandished her toothbrush at him.

“Crowley, I say this sincerely and with love, but _have you lost your goddamn mind?”_

“Wh— no, hang on,” Crowley went to do the _angry-peering-over-the-top-of-his-glasses_ thing that he knew he’d gotten down to an art form by now, then realised Aziraphale was still stood out in the doorway, holding his sunglasses like a fucking lemon. Perfect. “I’ll furiously ask the questions here, Device. I’m so, _so_ angry at you, I have no idea where to _start.”_

“Me?! Angry at _me?!”_ Anathema said, whisper-shouting clearly in an effort to not be rude to their guest. Crowley felt the effort was possibly too little too late, but liked having all his limbs, so refused to comment. “I refuse to be blamed for this! I told you, if you tried it this week, it would go bad! I warned you, and you didn’t listen, you _never_ listen!”

“You said you’d gone home!” Crowley yelled, actually properly yelled. “You said you’d gone home for the night!”

Anathema raised her hands, as though she wanted to strangle him— _and the feeling was entirely mutual!_ —and let out an incredibly unhinged groan.

“Yes, Crowley, I did say that, _because I live here!”_

_“Exactly!_ So you— you. You what?”

“I live here! With you!”

“Since when?!”

“About a week after you hired me.”

Crowley blinked. There was no way that was right.

“There’s no way that’s right.”

Anathema braced her hands on the kitchen counter, leaning heavily on it like the weight of the entire world was on her shoulders. 

“Five years, _five years_ I’ve lived here, Crowley,” she said. “How are you possibly _so_ self-involved that you’ve never even noticed?! Why do you think I’m here all the time?”

“Just…” Crowley said, feeling less and less righteous by the second. “Just really dedicated to your job?”

“And all my stuff? In the spare bedroom?” She turned to him, and he could see that she was moments away from laughing, but had no clue whether or not that would be a good sign in this instance.

“I have a spare bedroom? No, wait, hang on! What about, the, the place. You’ve got a home! The cottage, the— Jasmine! Jasmine Cottage, I _know_ you own it!” He yelled, grabbing the toothbrush from where she’d abandoned it on the counter and jabbing it towards her.

“Crowley, Jasmine Cottage is in _Tadfield._ In _Oxfordshire,”_ she said, having the audacity to sound patronising. “Did you honestly think I was commuting to and from London _every_ single day? Me living here is _literally_ in the contract you signed when you hired me!”

Crowley, who hired agents in order to never have to read a contract himself, felt himself fast running out of higher ground.

“So Newt was here because—”

“Because I live here.”

“And you and him—in my flat, in _my_ _home_ —the two of you… Anathema, I hate to tell you this, but this is the full definition of a _hostile work environment.”_

Anathema snatched her toothbrush back off him.

“Grow up, _Anthony.”_

They took a moment to glare at each other, before—as often happened with their arguments—they both ran out of steam at exactly the same time. Anathema sidled up to where he’d come to collapse against the counter, nudging him with her shoulder.

“Hey,” she murmured, softly, “he’s still out there. What are you going to do?”

Crowley scrubbed a hand back through his hair, and his fingers caught on a few tangles where Aziraphale’s grip had mussed it. Those precious few moments in the doorway seemed like a lifetime ago now. He knew the answer she would give, but he still couldn’t help but ask.

“You reckon I’ve fucked it for the night?”

“I think, despite previous protests, that one _might_ be on me,” Anathema said, finally sounding a little apologetic. “You want me to call Newt back? I could go stay at his place.”

He wanted to say yes. He wanted to tell her to piss off, to get out of his sight, to leave and never darken his doorway again and—once she was gone—he would slide back into Aziraphale’s hold, exactly as they’d been positioned before he began fumbling with his keys. They could pick up where they left off, and it would be like the interruption had never happened, and whatever this was—whatever was happening between them now—they could talk about it in the morning. Crowley could make breakfast. He was good at breakfast. He was good at a lot of things, and he wanted Aziraphale to know. He wanted to show him, reveal himself bit by bit, over the course of the night, the morning after, for as long as he was allowed to. 

He wanted _Aziraphale_ to want that, too.

“Gimme five minutes,” Crowley said, moving past her to the door. “But until then, can you just maybe piss off to the spare room? Wherever it is.”

“You know, if I’ve been living in it for five years, can we _really_ still call it the spare room?” Anathema said, headed to the door at the far end of the kitchen. 

_Yes,_ Crowley thought, _because its current inhabitant drives me spare every day._

Moving out into the hallway, Crowley’s heart stopped beating when he saw that his front door was still wide open, and Aziraphale no longer stood in it. Whirling on the spot, he tried not to let himself be completely overcome by fear. He hadn’t heard the lift being called and—no matter how humiliated he may have been—he was pretty sure Aziraphale’s extremely English sensibilities would never have allowed him to do an Irish exit. That could only mean he’d wandered _into_ the flat.

“Aziraphale?” He called.

“Oh, there you are,” Aziraphale said, coming out of the plant room, and stood the sort of distance away from Crowley that said, loud and clear, _the kissing part of this evening is over!_ “I was wondering if you’d murdered each other. Thought I should give myself an alibi.”

Crowley knew he was meant to join in, come up with some sort of witty response, but he couldn’t. Aziraphale looked so _buttoned-up_ in a way he absolutely hadn’t not ten minutes ago. It was funny, Crowley thought to himself, that he could notice this now. That, even though they hadn’t gotten as far as actually ripping each other’s clothes off, he’d always know the difference. Aziraphale’s eyebrows raised that little bit higher, clearly expecting Crowley to do his bit and play this off. Fine, fine. He could do it. He could wait.

“Your idea of an alibi is to move _further into_ the scene of the crime, is it?”

Aziraphale broke into a smile that was only somewhat shaky, and Crowley felt himself mirror it.

“Well, once I realised my mistake, I had thought to escape down the balcony, you see, but then I got distracted by your beautiful houseplants, and then I spied these!” Aziraphale said, and held aloft in both hands every single one of the books Crowley had bought for him. “You said you only had one, but so many! Which is best, you’ll have to advise me.”

Crowley swallowed. He moved towards him, and carefully placed his hands over Aziraphale’s, pressing them towards his chest.

“They’re all yours,” he said. “They’re yours, Aziraphale. Take ‘em.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened. “My dear, I don’t—”

“It’s okay,” Crowley said, and hoped it was enough. He watched the pulse in Aziraphale’s neck quicken, thought wistfully of how he’d not gotten the chance to press his lips there yet, but there was time. This was the start of it, not the end. “I reckon... we should call it a night, yeah?”

“Ah. Yes, I— I quite agree. Thank you, Crowley,” Aziraphale murmured. “I’ll see you tomorrow? At, at the studio, I mean. Back to business, now. Dress rehearsal is at two. You won’t forget?”

Crowley snorted. “Now that you mention it, after our evening was so thoroughly spoiled, I had thought I’d skip it this week.”

Aziraphale, who had already been moving back to the open door, turned back to give Crowley a reproachful look that was so damn genuine Crowley considered it the ultimate feat of strength that he didn’t immediately fall to his knees in supplication. The line had moved and he hadn’t noticed, too distracted by the feel of Aziraphale’s body pressed up against his, the laughter on his lips, the hand in his hair. But the look on Aziraphale’s face was unmistakable. 

They couldn’t joke about this. Not yet.

“I’ll be there,” he said, figuring that—if Aziraphale felt the same—he would understand the promise held within it. There wasn’t anywhere else he could be. 

* * *

Aziraphale paused in the doorway of his flat and just _looked._

The battered laptop and its useless battery, the beaten leather chair, the chintz and brocade and the antique table that had been bravely staving off wormwood for the last ten years. Familiar. Safe. Very much a bachelor pad. He closed the door behind him and leaned against it, squeezing the books to his chest. 

“Shit,” he said quietly, into the silence. 

He abandoned the books on the valet, and took off his jacket. As he went to hang it up, he felt a slight weight in the pocket. Crowley’s sunglasses. He fished them out, and stared at them for a while, and then he carefully placed them on the kitchen counter as he poured himself a very stiff drink. 

“Shit,” he said again, in case some of his furniture had missed it the first time. 

He then sat down in his armchair and methodically unlaced his shoes, took them off, and set them with heels straight by the side of the chair. 

In another universe he would be somewhere very different right now, he mused. He would be in Crowley’s home, in his bed. Aziraphale spared a moment to imagine, in a theoretical way, what it would have been like. They were neither of them young, but in some ways, that held in their favour. Crowley would know what he liked by now, as Aziraphale did; and given his response when kissed he wouldn’t be shy about letting him know, if he asked. Aziraphale would very much like to ask. Aziraphale was of the opinion that if one was going into uncharted territory, it only made sense to ask the locals for directions. _Does that feel good. Do you want. Tell me how._

He squeezed his eyes shut, because this avenue of thought was dangerous. Aziraphale did not make a habit of sleeping with people once. It was like seeing one corner of a picture and then having it whisked away; quick and unsatisfying and not at all representative. Having a lover—only it was rather unfashionable to say lover, now, wasn’t it?—meant getting to know someone, what they preferred, what they had always wanted to try. Even if it was casual, which some of Aziraphale’s relationships _had_ been. You learned them, and they learned you. It took time, and trust, and it was infinitely more rewarding to him than a quick roll in the proverbial hay. Aziraphale did not like to make assumptions about people, but the impression that he got from Crowley was that this was a man for whom commitment was the exception, not the rule. That was alright. He also knew some people looked at his own outdated clothes and personal foibles and thought him staid, and easily scandalised, and—and _proper,_ but that was alright, too, because it was true, in a certain sense. 

Aziraphale dedicated himself both in his professional and personal lives. If he was going to bed someone, he was going to do it _properly._

He downed his drink. Perhaps, if they’d ran hand-in-hand down this path from the start, if they’d let their bodies lead the charge, there wouldn’t be an issue. They could have kept it casual, had their fun for the duration of the series, and then been on their merry way. But now they were, Aziraphale thought with a heart that was both heavy and full, _friends_. He liked Crowley— really, truly liked him, quite a horrible amount, actually. They had plans to go see _The Visit_ in January, for Heaven’s sake! There was nothing _casual_ about that. Not for him. And that, of course, was why he had to knock this thing on the head.

Thank god for Anathema. If she hadn’t been there, things would have been irrevocable.

He stared at the sunglasses on the counter, padded over in his stockinged feet, and brought them back to the chair, loosely held in one hand. When he had kissed Crowley, all the metaphors had come home to roost. He was in too deep, he had bitten off more than he could chew, he had bolted the stable door well after the horses had gone, _et cetera et cetera._ How very pedestrian. At his age, he should have known better, but he hadn’t; Crowley had crept up on him. The intensity of his own feelings had crept up on him, and now he had found himself waist-deep in what was increasingly feeling like the greatest romance of his life, puzzled and shaken and with no clear way to haul himself out of it.

Aziraphale found he was angry, and he observed this anger with detachment. _Why now?_ Was his main thought. Why at _this_ stage in his life, with a career in jeopardy and the eyes of a nation on him, however frivolously? Why couldn’t it have happened in his twenties, or his thirties, or even his forties, when he was younger and stupidly beautiful and beautifully stupid and able to _recover,_ if it all went wrong? 

However sensible he had tried to be up until this point, he could feel himself already wanting something that wouldn't vanish when the wind changed. He wanted… he struggled to find a word to describe it, but it was vast and enduring, and it had a garden. 

Aziraphale stood. He paced his lounge. He faced the mirror, and, on a whim, put Crowley’s glasses on. He looked like a deflated Billy Idol. He took them off. 

The good thing was that from the way Crowley had initially been unable to meet his eye when Anathema discovered them _in flagrante delicto,_ _he_ had also realised what a terrible idea this was. That was _good,_ Aziraphale reminded himself. If that was all Crowley saw this as—if it was simply momentary satisfaction to be forgotten in the doorway at the first sign of embarrassment—then wasn't it better to nip it in the bud now? They could continue on as they had. They’d managed so far, and they’d been doing a pretty good job of it too. They had both said it, in a roundabout sort of way— _time to call it a night, back to business as usual_ —but he wanted to be sure. No more miscommunications.

In the throes of conviction, he pulled his phone from his pocket and crafted a text. 

_I gather we are on the same page, here?_

Barely a minute went by.

_yep_ Crowley responded. 

Then, 😉 

_Thank goodness,_ thought Aziraphale.

😉 he sent back. 

And that was that.

* * *

As methods of human communication go, the wink emoji is not particularly versatile. 

When Crowley responded to Aziraphale’s text with a wink, what he meant was:

> _don’t worry, discretion is my middle name.  
>  see you tomorrow for work, and then  
> once we’ve got that out the way  
> i’m planning to snog you against the nearest available surface  
> at your earliest convenience. _

And, as far as he was concerned, Aziraphale’s answering wink meant:

> _Excellent, see you there, pip pip (only_ sexy).

This was the interpretation most people, having watched the development of symbol-based language with interest over the past thirty years, and of which the winking face was one of the oldest and most well-known examples, would have gone with.

Aziraphale, however, was not most people.

What Aziraphale interpreted Crowley’s wink emoji to mean was:

> _Don’t worry, discretion is my middle name.  
>  We both agree this was a terrible mistake made in the heat of the moment.  
> See you tomorrow, when we will both continue with the performance and the show  
> as if this never happened. _

And therefore, what Aziraphale’s answering wink emoji _really_ meant was:

> _Excellent, say no more, see you there, pip pip (only_ professional).

This fundamental error in communication could have been resolved by most people with a simple phone call, clarifying text, or good old-fashioned face-to-face conversation. 

Unfortunately, they were not most people.

* * *

Crowley never actually saw the _Strictly_ set team— the army of builders, carpenters, welders, painters, pyrotechnical engineers, _mâchers_ of _papiér_ and wizards of MDF that cobbled together the illusion of place every week. Sometimes he would catch a whiff of hot glue and know they had been there, but other than the electrical jockeys who stuck around for when the lights and sound inevitably failed, he never so much as glimpsed the cuff of a plaid shirt. They were a little like Oompa Loompas, but hopefully with better labour conditions. It was worth noting that he never saw the medical team either; he just had to take it on faith that if he did go up in flames they’d sally out of the wings with a stretcher and some Savlon.

Anyway, just because he hadn’t seen the set crew didn’t mean they hadn’t been busy. There were always finishing touches to put on things during dress rehearsal—routines, sets and costumes alike—and so Crowley didn’t really appreciate the full effect of their staging for Saturday night until he was right in the middle of it, waiting for his cue. Once again, he found himself marvelling at what the Beeb decided to spend its budget on, but couldn’t find it in himself to be pissed about this. This, as far as Crowley was concerned, was a fucking _excellent_ use of taxpayer money.

The music started, and the stage was drenched in white light. Around them were the white and curving forms of clouds, wood set-pieces layered one in front of the other to give the illusion of depth. Between two of these Crowley and Aziraphale waited, each on opposite sides of the empty stage. Across from him, behind an MDF cloud, Crowley could see Aziraphale in his white suit; a sort of cross between a marching band uniform and a McQueen military jacket, with white feathered epaulettes. When he’d first seen it, Crowley had thrown a fit—it was gorgeous, how come Tracy hadn’t made him one in black for emergency jaunts to Tesco—but that was until he’d seen his dress.

_One, Two, Three,_ he saw Aziraphale mouth to him, and Crowley felt the now-familiar rush of fear and adrenaline that came just before the beginning of a dance, a feeling a little like (he now realised) going in for a first kiss. The sort of feeling he was pretty sure he was going to associate with Aziraphale, now, until his dying day. They rushed from the makeshift wings to the centre of the floor to the opening beats of _Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,_ cleverly rearranged to be up-tempo and dramatic by Big Ted and the lads, and as soon as they got into closed position Crowley knew, with the same liquid-luck feeling from yesterday, that they were going to absolutely smash it. The crowd burst into cheers as he and Aziraphale began their first walk through the clouds, following the fierce rhythm, Crowley swishing his white, voluminous skirts.

_“Heaven and Hell,” Aziraphale had said to him last week, when Crowley asked what their next theme would be. “The War in Heaven! The Miltonian schism! It fits wonderfully with the_ Paso Doble _, you know, which is very aggressive and martial. You should see what Tracy has cooked up for us! I’ve got the most lovely angelic uniform, more couture than cotton sheets, don’t fret, and you have a dress that— well. You’ll see.”_

_Crowley had propped his chin on his hand and smiled.“You realise most people’s themes are more along the lines of ‘it’s the fifties and we’re at a sockhop’ right?”_

_“I was cursed with flair.”_

_Aziraphale’s musical theatre background was always trying its hardest to be foreground, Crowley knew. “If I called you extra, would you know what I meant?”_

_“I can infer. Now, tell me, how do you feel about mid-performance costume changes?”_

Crowley felt great about mid-performance costume changes, because _extra_ wasn’t a quality they had divvied up between them. 

Their dancing became more adversarial. Where before, Aziraphale had held him close, their feet moving in perfect time, now Crowley began to turn his face away, to pull from his grasp. Aziraphale drew him back in, faster now, and Crowley tried not to grin in anticipation of what was to come. His skirts were a flurry of white as they twirled, bound together for a few seconds more, and then he twisted around Aziraphale’s body and out of his grasp. The white light of their simulated Heaven began to blush pink and orange, bloodying the clouds. The music reached its peak, and it was time.

Crowley’s final turn away from Aziraphale brought him centre stage, a complete separation. He was on his own here— it was up to him to sell it. Crowley took a quick breath, threw his head back, and deployed Tracy’s _pièce de résistance._ His arms crossed over his chest, hands coming up to his shoulders, and he _ripped_ at the straps of the dress. The catches hidden there came away and the high-necked bodice of the dress dropped. The fabric tumbled down his torso, revealing the tight black body beneath and covering the white skirt in a cascade of darkness. He performed an _apel,_ the stamp of his heel shaking loose the last of it, and completely enveloped himself in this new form. 

Around him, the light turned red, and the clouds in their undulating shapes were no longer clouds, but the hollowed rock deep beneath the Earth. Fire spewed—presumably safely—from the floor. Crowley had Fallen.

The audience absolutely lost it.

Crowley let himself tip backwards. Strong arms caught him and dragged him across the floor, his body a straight line as Aziraphale pulled him in. They took up position again, leading hands clasped, arms around each other at the back, and began to walk across the floor. Their heads flicked back and forth, looking from the camera to each other with every step. Crowley could _see_ the ridiculous grin on Aziraphale’s face at them having pulled this off, which was just _unfair_ considering how often he banged on about the importance of not breaking character to Crowley. If they lost points for this, he’d never let Aziraphale live it down and, god, he actually properly _cared_ about this now.

They stretched out, arms a straight line away from each other, and Aziraphale gripped tightly onto his wrist as he spun Crowley’s body onto the floor. Crowley had protested in rehearsals about this bit—what was the point in giving him this _amazing_ dress if they were only going to muck it up on the floor—but Aziraphale had been adamant the floor sweeps were necessary. _“You can hardly call yourself a successful cape if you’re not up for being twirled about a bit”._ What was happening to him now didn’t feel like just being _twirled about a bit._ The initial burst of momentum was his but everything thereafter relied entirely on Aziraphale keeping him going. He threw out his free hand and Aziraphale was there to take it, pulling him back to his feet only to twist their grip overhead and swing Crowley back to the floor, passing him through the arch of his legs and letting go, his body now sliding freely. Crowley tucked his knees up and to the side, the skirt billowing out around him as he bent at the waist and slid his arms forward. As the music reached a crescendo he looked up and turned back, towards Aziraphale, and they stretched their arms out toward each other. The music cut out at the same time as the studio lights, and a spotlight illuminated them both. Crowley couldn’t see, eyes locked on Aziraphale’s as they held final position, but he knew on the floor behind him would be the great, dark shadow of outstretched wings.

The audience could have been silent as the grave and Crowley wouldn’t have noticed. All he could hear was Aziraphale’s laughter as he made his way toward him, and his own heavy breathing as he was pulled to his feet by two soft, strong hands— and fell just a little bit further.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't think i didn't notice how marginalia took advantage of my formatting-induced stress haze to put her name at the start of our arrangement. it's mort&marginalia and don't you forget it, pal.
> 
> p.s: hi mum —mort xoxo
> 
>  **UPDATE 12/09/2020** — oh hey, didn't see you there. come on in. if you're here looking for the next chapter of the fic, i would ask you to not panic and just have a quick gander at [this](https://mortifyingideal.tumblr.com/post/629164480048365568/an-updated-note-from-a-showrunner) post on my blog. thank you!


	10. Blackpool Week — Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phew! Break’s over, and it’s time to celebrate a milestone; that’s right, #TeamDelightful have made it to the Tower Ballroom! While doors are opening all over for our resident celeb, our professional feels his window is closing. A threshold has been reached— will they step over it? Or will they linger in the doorway for just a bit longer?  
> Welcome to Blackpool Week.

* * *

Logic, temporal mechanics and the magazine _Cosmopolitan_ will tell you that once kissed, a person cannot be un-kissed. This is technically true, time working in the direction that it does—forward, unrelentingly—but in certain circumstances a kiss can be rendered null and void. Crowley would opine that this required two things: mutual co-operation, and a forgettable enough experience.

Being kissed stupid by Aziraphale had not been a forgettable experience, let’s put it like that. 

Come Monday, Crowley was having a little trouble figuring out the best way to address someone who was simultaneously coworker, dance partner, potential S/O and leading man in every fantasy he’d had for the past two months. There should be a sort of honorific for it, Crowley mused. Or a grammatical change, like the informal _tu_ in French. He considered the problem while he showered, while he drove to the studios, while he collected their usual order from the coffee cart, and was still pondering it even as he approached the security gates. He’d gone back and forth, and currently the lead approach was the good-old-fashioned _“hey, angel”_ —lean in the doorway looking insouciant, jut out a hip, cheeky bit of smoulder—although gaining ground was the idea of heading in for a cheek kiss, which he thought was very forward and European. It seemed the sort of thing Aziraphale would go in for. He liked French food, at any rate. French dance terms. Other French things, if his behaviour last Friday was anything to go by. 

Of course, none of this would be so bloody complex if the show wasn’t determined to get in the way at every turn. If Saturdays didn’t take so much out of them both—if they had any room to _breathe_ during a live show, let alone talk—he wouldn’t be having to pack all this significance into a Monday morning _hello_. Aziraphale turned down Sunday brunch by simply sending him a screenshot of his To Do list, which meant Crowley got to lie in bed all day, feeling decadently lazy and replaying Friday night over and over again in his mind until he’d polished it to perfection. A little bit of casual editing here, airbrush Anathema out of the picture there, and it had been a _very_ fruitful Sunday for Anthony J Crowley. 

“Oi, Tony!” 

Crowley was abruptly brought back down to earth by Geoff, the only man alive who could call him _Tony_ and get away with it, by virtue of being literally unable to do any wrong.

“Hm?”

“You coming in or what?” Geoff was smirking at him, and rightfully so. Crowley realised he’d been standing next to the security gates with what he could only imagine was a _besotted_ look on his face for the last three minutes. Didn’t matter. He was still riding the highs of Friday, embarrassment couldn’t catch him. He laughed at himself as he tapped the pass at his hip against the gate.

“My god, must’ve been some weekend. You stepping out on me, Tony?”

“Well, I waited for you long enough, Geoff. I’ve just had to make do.” Crowley winked, and Geoff flashed his gold fillings in a laugh, and then Crowley was out of time to debate his options as he reached the rehearsal studio. He nudged the door open, and went for the lean.

“H—”

_“For goodness’ sake!”_ shouted Aziraphale, and Crowley’s smile vanished. 

Aziraphale had the Alexa in one hand and a remote in the other, an arm looped through the backs of two chairs. Crowley was not the target of his ire, by the looks of it, but he had definitely wandered into the splash zone. Aziraphale was unusually disheveled, and the hems of his trousers were wet. 

“Good morning. You look a state,” said Crowley, and winced. This was not how he had intended to open proceedings. “What’s ruffled your feathers? She—” he inclined his head towards the Alexa “—been misbehaving?”

Briefly, Aziraphale’s face cleared, as if Crowley was the missing conduit that closed a circuit inside him and lit up that thousand-watt smile; Crowley felt that current move through him. Then Aziraphale flickered off again.

“Alexa is innocent in all this,” he seethed. “But the chair-wielding interlopers that used our space on Friday are not. In a few short hours they managed to scatter furniture about, leave the windows open, and foul up the Bluetooth partnership between Alexa and the speakers! I disconnected both in an attempt to regain control, like Google said, but now _neither_ will turn on again, and I cannot figure out how to fix it. In addition,” he stabbed the remote with a finger, frowning when this didn’t magically fix everything, “ten minutes ago one of the runners—the scowly one, _Pepper_ —came by to tell me they _mismeasured_ our set for the Blackpool Tower Ballroom and are having to do emergency changes. At this late stage! And then of course there’s this debacle with Eve—”

“Angel.” Crowley was growing worried for the remote.

“—which is an utter hack job, I mean a _complete_ farce, and on top of all that a taxi _splashed_ me on the way into work, look, I have puddle-water in my turn-ups, and I didn’t get a very good night’s sleep either so I am quite simply—”

“Hey, okay, alright,” said Crowley, gently removing it from his grasp, “just. Put the brakes on, yeah? What thing with Eve?” 

“There was an article,” began Aziraphale, but Crowley was already pulling out his phone. He had an unholy number of notifications, but within thirty seconds of scrolling he got the gist. He felt a brief flare of anger that faded, all too quickly, into resignation. Of course they’d go after Eve. She was smart, and beautiful, and savvy, and brilliant. That was the thing about the British press; nothing brilliant could thrive. _No Fun Allowed._ So what, they’d gotten a bit tipsy on the sacred ground of the BBC compound. Crowley had done far worse, and what he liked most about Eve was that he was fairly sure she had, too.

“Not much mention of me,” noted Crowley.

Aziraphale looked affronted. “You’re worrying about your notoriety at a time like this? Crowley, for—”

“Ehh, a bit, yeah, but I mostly mean you’d think she was alone, the way this tells it,” Crowley scowled, wondering if Anathema would let him subtweet _The Daily Mail._ “Whoever leaked this wasn’t interested in smearing me, just Eve.”

“Well that’s—” Aziraphale paused, wrinkling his nose. Even with his blood boiling, Crowley still took a second to appreciate how offensively cute it was. “Very distasteful. I was under the impression that Alex was handling things. Gabriel certainly won’t be best pleased, if it’s an inside job.”

“Ugh, now I have to sit with the knowledge that there’s something out there I’d happily agree with Gabriel about,” Crowley said, grimly. 

Aziraphale rubbed a hand down his face, heaving out a sigh. Crowley heard a quiet rasping sound, and realised it was possible Aziraphale _hadn’t shaved,_ which was. Interesting. Now that his righteous indignation on Eve’s behalf seemed to have waned a bit, Crowley could see that Aziraphale’s Sunday had probably not been as restful—or enjoyable—as his own. 

“It’s _Blackpool Week_ ,” Aziraphale said, picking up on the look of concern Crowley must have subconsciously been radiating at him. “There’s just— there’s just so much to do. It’s a very important phase of the show, and we’ll be working in a different space with a set that now seems to be entirely wrong, and there might not be time to fix it all and—”

Aziraphale gestured, when he was upset. And when he was excited. And when he was angry. Apparently today he was a dizzying combination of all three, as Crowley snagged an errant hand before it had a chance to do some real damage to his nose and pressed one of the takeaway cups into it. Aziraphale slumped back wearily, perching on the edge of the table. Crowley set about pairing Alexa and the speakers together again, a job that took all of thirty seconds and required absolutely no Googling whatsoever, but he wasn’t about to go telling Aziraphale that when he was in this state. He then tried to lift two chairs in one hand as Aziraphale had done and _instantly_ regretted it. Like any sane person confronted with their hubris in plain sight of the object of their affections, he was forced to struggle bravely on until the chairs were, if not _completely_ out of the way, slightly to the _left_ of being in the way. He took a fortifying breath and sauntered back over to the table, crossing his arms and trying to be as casual as possible. 

“Any other services I can provide?”

“Look, I’ve been thinking...” started Aziraphale, who was looking down at his hands and so missing all the effort Crowley was putting into looking nonplussed and sexy. “So much else has gone wrong this week, and we’re only a day in. There’s always, _always_ issues when it comes to Blackpool, and I can tell that you— what I mean to say is, perhaps we should… talk. Properly. About when we— about Friday.”

Apprehension ballooned in Crowley’s chest. This was what he had wanted, to a certain extent. Talking meant actually acknowledging this out loud, which meant hashing out all the practicalities of what _this_ was, and how serious, and how long for, and what were they going to do with it all, and as soon as all that theory was out of the way they could get to—

“Nah,” Crowley said, much to the surprise of his internal monologue. “It can wait.”

Somehow, this had been the exact right thing to say. Aziraphale visibly _sagged_ in relief. “Thank you, my dear,” he said. “Are you certain that’s alright with you?”

“Yeah, ‘course. We’ve both got a lot on. Put a pin in it, yeah?” He mimed putting a pin in the conversation not-yet-had, and mentally shelved all expectation of mouth-to-anywhere contact for the foreseeable. There was no rush, after all. Although there was a part of Crowley that was telling him to lean in and say something corny like _“oh angel, let me help you relax,”_ there was a much, _much_ larger part telling him to read the bloody room. The room, and all the mess inside it, was saying in no uncertain terms that Aziraphale needed him to behave, at least for the next seven days. Crowley’s track record of good behaviour had, up until this point, never made it past the _“five days since our last workplace incident”_ marker, but he was willing to try, this time. He was willing to do a lot, Crowley had come to terms with, if it would make Aziraphale smile at him like that.

“So, what’s on the menu this week, then?”

“Crowley, you should know by now—”

“I do, but remind me.”

“The rumba— or, well, technically it should be _rhumba,_ with an _h_ , to distinguish the ballroom style from the Cuban rumba from which it derives. All the issues that I have with samba apply here, but if I may be honest, I care slightly less, for the simple selfish reason that I like it _much_ more…”

Aziraphale slowly perked back up again as he talked. Maybe it was a bit of an unfair distraction tactic on his part, but Crowley knew that talking through the dances and their history and all the other shit that would normally put Crowley to sleep helped Aziraphale centre himself. It was like the man was his own self-generating white noise machine. As an added bonus, if Crowley remembered something from one of these tangents to parrot back to him later, it earned him a very particular sort of look. Mutually beneficial, that’s what it was.

“Right, ah-hah,” he said, after an appropriate amount of time had passed and Aziraphale had moved on from explaining how the rumba was a dance not typically done at Blackpool— _“it benefits from minimal staging, and Blackpool is all about hyperbolic setting, so we’ll be able to meet in the middle and make an unexpectedly perfect match”_ —and started butchering the Spanish language with gusto. “And what’s our soundtrack?”

Aziraphale hesitated. 

_Oh,_ Crowley thought _, hello. What could that possibly be about?_

“Let me teach you the basic steps,” Aziraphale said, dodging the question entirely. 

Crowley tried not to seem too eager as he stepped into Aziraphale’s space. The main problem was that the rumba, to Crowley’s untrained eye, wasn’t a dance that let you forget something like necking in the doorway of your flat several days previous. Even as Aziraphale took his time explaining in unnecessarily technical detail each step, each extension of the arm, each placement of the foot, even with the slow and deliberate pace of the dance, Crowley couldn’t help but think about the wild, almost frenzied way Aziraphale had kissed him. He pulled back a little, hand sliding up from its position on Aziraphale’s chest to pat him on the shoulder, before he could do something that would set the _workplace incident_ counter right back to “0”. 

“So come on, then. What’s Big Ted getting some poor soul to belt out this week? _Lady in Red?_ _2 Become 1?_ Ooh, Fleetwood Mac’s _The Chain?”_

“Not, ah, not quite. Now, the thing to remember about the rumba is that although it is characterised by hip action, the movement is not _generated_ by the hips, but rather by the feet, ankles, legs—”

“You’re being cagey,” said Crowley.

“Am I? No, I’m not. You are,” said Aziraphale. Crowley deliberately fouled up a step, feigning innocence when Aziraphale glared at him. 

“Might not have missed that if I had a beat behind me. Why won’t you tell me what we’re dancing to?”

Aziraphale sniffed.

“Because I can already tell you’re going to kick up a fuss, and I don’t have the energy to deal with it this week, Crowley.”

“When have I _ever_ kicked up a fuss?”

“Besides from this very moment, you mean?”

Crowley grinned.

“Well tell me what it is, then, and I’ll leave off.”

Aziraphale, with the cadence of a thousand martyrs, requested that Alexa strike up the _Blackpool Playlist._ Crowley was about to tease him on the absurdity of making playlists for each week of the competition when they’d only have one bloody song on them, but the instant the single song in question started the grin slid off his face. They didn’t move from their position for over a minute, Aziraphale’s hand tight on Crowley’s waist, Crowley’s eyebrows gradually climbing to his hairline

Finally, Aziraphale broke the tension. “Alexa, _stop.”_

In the silence of the studio, Crowley took a moment to reflect on the fact that in future, whenever someone used the phrase _‘mixed messages’_ , this moment would appear before him in perfect Technicolour, emblazoned across his consciousness for the rest of eternity.

“I _knew_ you couldn’t be an adult about this,” said Aziraphale, apparently now a mindreader. His voice cracked a little at the end. 

Crowley snorted. “How, and don’t take this the wrong way, but how did you even _hear_ this song?”

Aziraphale puffed up in indignation. “I’m not entirely devoid of knowledge of popular culture,” he said, severely. “It’s a very _good_ song, by one of the world’s most _deservedly celebrated_ living artists, and it will make a cracking rumba. Yes, I may have heard it for the first time whilst being forced to sit through _Forty Shades_ with Tracy—”

“I think you might’ve dropped a few shades there—”

“—but I’d _hoped_ my partner would be mature enough to set all that aside and commit to the dance no matter _what._ Besides, I put in the request several weeks ago when I didn’t think I’d— _we’d_ get this far.” They still hadn’t moved. Crowley felt no need to pull away if Aziraphale didn’t. He watched Aziraphale swallow. “Look. I can count the number of times I’ve gotten to Blackpool on one hand, and every time I’ve gone for a traditional piece. I wanted to do something this year that would leave a mark, as it were. Something to set myself apart from my past performances.”

Crowley hummed, flexing his fingers around Aziraphale’s shoulder. 

“It'll leave a mark, alright. Leave a bloody hickey,” he said, smirking.

“Look, if you’re not— not _comfortable,_ or if you think it’s just too silly for us to do, I’ll change it,” Aziraphale said, biting his lip. _Completely_ illegal tactics, but Crowley had always been a fan of rulebreakers.

“Don’t you dare,” Crowley said, finally pulling away from him. “But I’m telling you now, angel, if either of our costumes this week feature _dom jeans_ in any way, shape, or form, I’ll walk.”

Aziraphale laughed, for the first time that morning, and a sly smile found its way onto his face. 

“I can guarantee that those would never be a part of _your_ costume, dear boy.”

The resulting involuntary full-body stutter that this inspired in Crowley meant his hip bumped the small table holding Alexa, their water bottles, and other sundry objects. Something crashed to the floor with a noise that was sharper and louder than their water bottles had any right to be. 

“Oh dear,” said Aziraphale. 

Broken on the floor was a large pink crystal, obelisk-shaped and tapering to a point. It had cracked right in half across the middle like a snapped pencil. Crowley had never noticed it before. Aziraphale picked up a chunk, and Crowley felt a pricking of his thumbs.

“This,” he said, “looks suspiciously like Anathema ephemera.”

“That will be because it is,” said Aziraphale. “Or was. She gave it to me as a— well, a gift, I think. Told me to put it in the studio for luck.”

Crowley suspected that there was a little more to Anathema’s motives than just _good vibes_ , but he had worked hard, in his long acquaintance with his manager, to remain completely ignorant of all charms, chakras, crystals, astrology, numerology, cryptozoology, essential oils, non-essential oils, or magick of any spelling. He filed the cracked crystal under _“witch stuff”,_ but pocketed the pointy half to wave at her later. 

“Hope that wasn’t an omen, then. Which I’m sure it _wasn’t,”_ he amended, when he noticed Aziraphale looking stricken. “Honestly, it’s fine. We’re fine.”

It was then that Michael stuck her head round the door.

“Meeting in the ballroom in five. Mandatory. Don’t dawdle,” she said, with that tight, puckered smile, and then disappeared. 

Aziraphale looked at Crowley accusingly.

“We’ll be fine,” he insisted, hoping he sounded more certain than he felt.

* * *

Any show that goes on for long enough acquires its own set of physics, which is why no-one names The Scottish Play in theatres. Aziraphale, erstwhile luvvie that he was, had noticed several laws in play during his tenure on _Strictly Come Dancing._ _The Curse_ was one, and _Fell’s Law_ , named after himself, was another. 

_Fell’s Law_ was similar to Murphy’s Law, though more narrowly applicable, and it went thus: _Anything that_ ** _can_** _go wrong in Blackpool Week_ ** _will_** _go wrong._ The cast knew it, the crew knew it, goodness, even the viewers knew it, as it was the same pileup of catastrophes year on year. Aziraphale was usually unphased, if not immune. Kept his head down, his eyes front, his feet on the ground (when appropriate) and just _got on with it,_ adjusting course to dodge disaster and gritting his teeth when it couldn’t be avoided. All around him, his colleagues and co-stars were outed for trysts, bust-ups and—on one memorable occasion—a secret career as an infamous romance novelist. Meanwhile Aziraphale, _faux pas_ excepting, never made the tabloid press for anything remotely to do with his personal life, because. Well. He didn’t _have_ one.

Until this year, of course.

They were the last to arrive in the ballroom. It was a little perverse, Aziraphale always thought, to see the old girl in broad daylight. No glitz, no glamour— just overhead lighting and the faint hum of a vacuum cleaner somewhere amongst the back rows of seats. It was especially potent this week, with half the gear packed up and ready for transportation, and yet the ballroom seemed unusually crowded. As Aziraphale ducked under a ladder to get by a technician attempting to wrestle a disco ball down from its spot in the rafters, he realised that all of the back-up dancers were present, as well as all the stagehands, the stand-ins— almost the entire complement of staff. Whatever this was, it was _serious_.

“What’s got management’s knickers in a twist, d’you reckon?” Crowley asked, looking around with interest as they made their way towards their gathered colleagues. “Surprise addition to the cast? Murder most foul? Claudine’s cut her fringe, and they want to make sure we’re emotionally prepared?”

“Don’t quote me on this,” Aziraphale said, trying not to give Crowley the satisfaction of his laughter, “but I think it might have something to do with your notoriety. Or, rather, lack thereof.”

“Oh, what, it’s _my fault_ now?” Crowley said, holding a hand to his chest in mock-affront. Any scenery nearby suddenly found itself in terrible danger of being chewed to pieces. “I’m to blame for this? Aziraphale, I’m _appalled_ you could even suggest such a thing.”

“Do you know, just a few short days ago I was thinking about what a marvellous actor you are.”

“You were?”

“Yes. And while I’m not usually one for admitting I’m wrong, there’s certainly a first time for everything.”

Crowley laughed at that, quick and sharp and as lovely as the rest of him. Aziraphale turned away in an effort not to show the pleased smile on his face, and looked over the remaining cast. He considered his theory from a few short weeks ago— that this infatuation was perhaps nothing more than a press of bodies, an accident of proximity, something brought on by the competition. If Launch Week had bound him to a different partner, would he still have been stricken with such depth of feeling? After all, he’d barely bothered to learn the others’ names this year. Sable _was_ handsome, Aziraphale supposed, and looked very well in a suit. He could imagine himself once upon a time developing something of an aesthetic appreciation for the man— but then there was the unfortunate and rather _large_ stumbling block of his personality. What if it had been someone else entirely? That handsome weatherman from Channel 4, for instance? What then?

Aziraphale let his gaze fall back to where it naturally wanted to be, on Crowley. Crowley, who had waltzed in that morning and delivered unto him the perfect cup of tea, had listened to his ramblings and rantings about the week, who had fixed his technical issues with fast, clever hands. Crowley, who had said _“it can wait”._ Who had said _“we’ll be fine”._ No, this thing that had taken root in his chest couldn’t be blamed on the competition, and he was a fool for having thought any differently. 

Still, the issue was settled. No use getting mawkish about it now.

“Shame, huh?” Carmine said, appearing silently at Aziraphale’s side and taking a year off his life. “The gutter press are _ruthless_ this side of the pond.”

“Yes, quite,” Aziraphale replied tightly. He was not a fool. Whatever ended up in the gutter was most likely run-off from Carmine herself. There had been several anonymous quotes on how _difficult_ Eve was to work with, and they’d all had her trademark supervillain phrasing. _“Her emotions are her weakness”_ indeed.

“The way things are going now, there won’t be much competition for a spot in the final. Everyone’s dropping like flies.” If she was trying to project concern and sympathy, it wasn’t working. She looked pleased as punch. “I wouldn’t blame Eve if she wanted to bow out, and Pam won’t be making a reappearance, _poor_ thing. She really wanted to get to Blackpool, but that injury— I mean, that’s not something you come back from, y’know? Looked real painful.”

“What exactly _happened_ to Pam?” Aziraphale asked, feeling his pulse quicken a little as he remembered Carmine’s unfriendly approach to friendly rivalry. He had a sudden image of her dropping a grand piano on poor, defenseless Pam, cackling all the while. Which was ridiculous, he reminded himself, as the studio didn’t even _have_ a grand piano, just an upright.

“And then of course, we’ve got Hollywood over here,” Carmine grinned, continuing as if Aziraphale hadn’t asked a question. She poked a terribly sharp fingernail into Crowley’s chest.

“Hollywood?” Crowley eyed her over the top of his glasses. “That supposed to mean something to me?”

“Come on, don’t play coy. It doesn’t suit you,” Carmine said. Crowley continued to look blankly at her, and she continued to look at him like he was a particularly interesting specimen under her boot, and Aziraphale couldn’t help but feel thoroughly ignored.

“What, _exactly,_ is he meant to be playing coy about? _”_ Aziraphale crossed his arms and tried not to wince as the little chunk of quartz poked him in the chest through his breast pocket.

“That any day now he’s gonna go waltzing right out that door and onto a plane,” Carmine said, a delighted smile slowly colonising her face. “I only know the vague details, of course, but I hear things. Specifically, I hear things from my agent, who used to be his agent,” she jerked her thumb at Crowley, “and sometimes offers meant for AJ here still cross their desk.”

Aziraphale waited for Crowley to scoff. Rattle off a witty barb or two, perhaps.

All he came out with was an unconvincing, _“huh.”_

Aziraphale crossed his arms a little tighter. From the looks of things, this was news to Crowley. It must be. Crowley wouldn’t keep this from him; couldn’t, most likely, god knew how he loved to gloat. Unease began to sour Aziraphale’s stomach.

“Of course,” Carmine continued, “it’s not until recently that I’ve started paying attention when Beez passes those offers along to the proper channels. Big names, big money— _lotta_ zeroes, is what I’m saying.” She clapped Crowley on the back, and he lurched like a rear-ended Skoda. “Congrats, Anthony. You won without even having to play the full game. I’m impressed.”

Aziraphale tried, with all the force of his not-inconsiderable will, to nudge Crowley into laughing this off, to assure them that he had no plans on leaving the show until his time was up, no matter how many zeroes trailed him. With every second of silence that ticked by, it became clearer that he wasn’t going to do anything of the sort. 

“Huh,” Crowley said again. He’d drifted off into a world of his own, dazed and thoughtful, and Aziraphale felt a sickening lurch within him, as if he had been grabbed by the ankle and swung full circle, back to the start of a ten-year loop. He rounded on Carmine with more anger than he’d normally permit. 

“ _Ms. Zugiber_ , I am not entirely sure—”

“Hey, Aziraphale? Are we all gonna have to wait for you to be finished with whatever you’re doing here, or do you wanna share with the class?”

Gabriel loomed from the balcony like Eva Perón with broader shoulders. Aziraphale’s jaw snapped shut, cheeks colouring as the entire assembly turned to stare at him. 

“That’s what I thought,” Gabriel said, seemingly satisfied with this little head teacher routine. “Okay troops! Listen up—”

He launched into a monologue that began with thanking them all for coming so promptly and quickly segued into a refresher course on Leaks and How To Stop Them. He wasn’t pointing fingers, he insisted, pointing a finger at them; but he liked to run a tight ship, and loose lips, as the saying went, sank yachts. That’s why leaks were _called_ leaks. Aziraphale knew he should be paying more attention—even if he privately suspected that this _could_ have been an email—but he couldn’t keep his thoughts from drifting as Gabriel began to talk about What It Means To Be Part of A Crew. Crowley had certainly _seemed_ shocked by Carmine’s little announcement, but then, Crowley was an actor. If Carmine had been telling the truth and this Beez character _was_ passing offers along to Anathema, then there was simply no way she would keep such lucrative opportunities from her client. Either Crowley was turning down some very impressive jobs or, more likely, Crowley was— was _considering_ them. Perhaps the only reason he hadn’t left already was because none of the offers were attractive enough.

_You’re being ridiculous,_ Aziraphale thought. _You’re getting het up over nothing._

Only, Crowley _had_ said that he missed it, hadn’t he? There, on the South Bank. And what was his appearance on _Strictly_ if not an attempt to reinvigorate his career? If that was proving fruitful before they’d even come within grasping distance of the final, why _should_ Crowley stick around? What benefit was it to him?

_Get through this week,_ he urged himself. _Get through this week, and then we shall deal with it. All of it. Concentrate on what’s in front of you, one step at a time._

“—so when this big, beautiful, _tight_ ship sails into Blackpool on Wednesday, d’you know what I wanna see? I wanna see class. I wanna see grace. I wanna see nobody out there on the boardwalk making an ass of themselves and I wanna see nobody tattling to the press about it.” Gabriel clapped his hands. “Have I made myself clear? Sandalphon, do you think I made myself clear?”

Sandalphon, from some dark, unseen corner where he was probably most at home, said “Crystal, sir.”

“Dismissed, then! Good hustle, team!” Gabriel waved a cheery salute at the room, who burst into chatter the second he turned his back to leave.

“Can you believe this absolute _bollocks?”_ Crowley said.

“Hm? Oh, yes, terrible, terrible,” Aziraphale replied, not knowing which indignity he was referring to but sure this was the appropriate response, going by Crowley’s tone. They started heading for the door, swept along in the throng of departing dancers and technicians. 

“I mean, I didn’t even get a mention!” Crowley was working himself up into a proper rant now, hands waving all over the shop. “Obviously this is all thanks to me, and yeah, alright, I’m not looking _proud of myself_ anything—completely out-of-proportion response to a few gossip mags sticking their nebs in—but you’d think I’d warrant at least a small mention. You got told off, and you didn’t even _do_ anything! It’s ridiculous. I should sue. Do you think I could sue?”

What if that was what Crowley meant, by “ _we’ve both got a lot on”?_ What if he was reluctant to get into talking about last Friday, not as a service to Aziraphale, but because he was off doing— _things._ Making calls. Schmoozing. 

“I reckon I could. Or write a letter to the editor, make sure they include my name in all future publications. ”

That would be quite distracting, Aziraphale allowed. Maybe that's why he’d not pressed about brunch on Sunday. Not that Aziraphale had been _ready,_ mind you, to go for brunch with him. The purpose of brunch was to relax and get a little tipsy, not navigate an emotional minefield. Alright, he’d been relieved when Crowley let it lie so easily after his initial rejection, but he had hoped that Crowley might at least give it a second go. That was what he did. He nudged, and he cajoled, and he teased. Like a child tonguing at a loose tooth, knowing that they shouldn’t but excited just to see what would _happen_ , when there would be some give. 

“And then once I’m done with that I could sprout a massive tail, real big bastard of a thing, and we can incorporate it into our next dance.”

Would Anathema tell him, if he asked? He didn’t want to _pry_ , Crowley’s life was his own, of course. But surely she would do Aziraphale the professional courtesy of warning him before his life was turned upside-down.

Not life, Aziraphale reminded himself. Career.

“Jesus died for our sins.”

Aziraphale blinked, then stared outright at Crowley. Somehow, they were back outside the door to the studio.

“I’m sorry?”

Crowley smirked, leaning against the wall. “I knew you weren’t paying attention.”

“I was! I—” Aziraphale blushed, then started fiddling with his pinky ring. “Oh, you’re right. Apologies, dear boy, I was rather off in my own head. What were you saying?”

“Load of old rubbish, really,” Crowley shrugged. “Although, I am surprised you haven’t kicked off more about these new _security measures._ Not for us, the sights and smells of Blackpool. Not for us, the unsampled restaurants of a new city, the crowded clubs and beachfront bars. Only house red and hotel fare for the bad kids.”

“What?” Aziraphale balked. Oh dear, the events of this morning really _had_ gotten away from him. “What on earth are you… oh. That’s what Gabriel was talking about, wasn’t it? We’re being _sequestered.”_

“Sounds painful.”

“It’s fairly standard, as far as reality television goes,” Aziraphale said, “but feels completely demoralising and patronising nonetheless.”

“Explains why Gabriel was so keen on it,” Crowley said, pushing open the door to the studio and holding it for Aziraphale. 

“Well, we’ll just have to make the most of it,” Aziraphale sighed, not feeling quite as put out as he was feigning. At the very least, Crowley would have a hard time hatching _career_ _plans_ with his manager from Blackpool boot camp. Selfish as that was, Aziraphale was glad for it. For the next few days, at least, he had his partner’s undivided attention. 

* * *

“So, this is the fabled spare room, is it? S’nice, I suppose. Got a desk there and everything. Got your, your pen tray with elephants on, and your bedspread which… also seems to feature elephants, got your crystals, your standard elephant-shaped oil burner. This is a startling amount of elephant-themed paraphernalia. Are you some sort of _Elephantidae_ enthusiast?”

“I’m working,” said Anathema. 

“Is that so? Because that sounds like Monster Factory.”

Anathema scowled at him and closed the tab. Crowley leaned further around the doorway to Anathema’s room, careful not to put a toe over the threshold, as he had the strongest feeling that something unpleasant would happen if he did. Anathema’s room was nice, and it was also starkly different to the rest of Crowley’s pretty stark flat. It was like someone had picked up a room from another home and dropped it wholesale into his own; a room from a house with dark oak beams and rich, beautifully woven rugs, a house with a lot of cushions and woven throws and a kitchen someone actually cooked in. It smelled good, not at all like the patchouli fug of a Mind, Body and Spirit shop, which was what he had been dreading, and there was not a shred of paisley to be seen. That wasn’t really her style anyway, on reflection. Anathema’s personality was as organised as it was witchy, which was why she didn’t have any dreamcatchers or Himalayan salt lamps, but _did_ have a series of arch-lever folders on her bookshelf helpfully labelled _Contracts_ , _Receipts_ , and ‘ _Recipes_ ’. 

Crowley didn't know for sure why _‘Recipes’_ was in scare quotes, but he had an idea.

“So I had a chat with Carmine today—or, y’know, she had a chat with me—and she dropped an interesting bit of info,” he began, figuring the direct approach was best.

“Mm?”

“Mm. Did you know Beez is her manager?” 

Anathema opened a new tab and started clicking about— shiftily, Crowley thought. “I did, yes.”

“And you didn’t say because…?” 

“Because I didn’t think it was relevant, and because I know you don’t like them.” She typed something, frowned, then hit backspace. 

“Carmine also said that you sometimes get emails from them,” he went on. “With offers for me that get sent their way by mistake.”

“I do,” said Anathema.

Crowley waited for her to expand on that. She did not. “I just think it’s _interesting,_ how she seemed to know so much about me, and my future prospects, when I didn’t have a clue. ‘Cause I mean, you told me we’d started to get job offers, but nothing decent. Only Carmine seemed to think—”

Anathema finally turned in her expensive, Scandinavian-looking office chair. “Carmine seemed to think what?” she asked, impatience creasing her very smooth, very well-moisturised forehead. “What’s this about, Crowley?”

Crowley fidgeted. He didn't know what it was about, not really. He only knew that he felt a bit prickly about the whole thing. “Fine. Carmine made a fuss about me getting job offers at assembly today—”

“Assembly?”

“Don’t ask, and she hinted, with all the subtlety of a charging rhino, that big things were heading my way. Fortune, fame, a part with more than three lines— she didn’t name any names, but it was _heavily_ implied that they were the sort of offers that’d be worth pegging it across the North Atlantic for ASAP. Only I distinctly remember you telling me everything so far had been pretty naff.”

“That’s because it has been,” said Anathema.

“Right,” said Crowley. “Okay then.” 

He slid out of the doorway, walked three steps, and then turned back.

“I want to hear what they were, actually. They are for me, after all, naff or not. It isn’t that I don’t trust you to vet them effectively,” and whoops, wow, he’d just jammed his foot right in there, hadn’t he? “but more for my own... “ he waved a hand, searching for the word on the tip of his tongue. Anathema watched him flatly, her working glasses perched on the edge of her nose. 

“Edification?” she provided, finally. 

“Y—”

“Sure, Crowley.” She turned back to the laptop and started clicking about. “Now that you’ve asked, I can tell you all about the amazing roles I’ve been hiding from you. I keep them all in a little folder, here.”

“Well, hang on, I didn’t suggest you were hiding—”

“Let’s see, let’s see.” She squinted at the screen. “Okay, so here we’ve got one for something called The Great British Celebrity Sewing Bee— how’s your needlework, again? Remind me?”

Crowley leant his head against the doorframe, already knowing how this was going to end. “Bad,” he said.

“Bad, okay. I’ve got one here from a dental care company, wanting to know if you’d like to be the new face of their teeth-whitening toothpaste, though they are very insistent that you get your teeth professionally whitened first before you start peddling lies for them. A town in Wales would like to know if you’d turn on their Christmas lights this year. Ooh, there’s a part here in a movie! You’re right, Crowley, should have shared this with you straight away. It’s called _Curse of the Snake-Men,_ and they want to know if you, Anthony J Crowley, would play the prestigious role of the High Snorcerer— presumably that’s Snake Sorcerer—”

“Alright, alright, I get your point,” he groaned. 

Anathema leaned back in her chair. “There have been some okay ones,” she allowed, “and they’re getting better all the time. But nothing currently worth breaking your concentration—or your contract—on the show for, okay? And you know that if there _was_ —”

“You’d tell me, yeah, I know.”

“Right. And to answer your question, I do like elephants, though not as much as my mom seems to believe. Pretty sure there’s a big one in the room right now, though. Wanna talk about it?”

Crowley made a face at the segue, taking the crystal out of his pocket and idly throwing and catching it. “Nah,” he said. “It’s fine.” It _was_ fine. He could wait. It was _fine._ Glancing over, he saw that Anathema’s eyes had widened.

“What’s that?” she asked. 

“Oh, this?” He turned the crystal so it caught the light, pretending he hadn’t really noticed he was holding it. “I dunno. Looks like a crystal, doesn’t it. Why don’t you tell me, Anathema?”

“Why is it broken?”

“How curious, I thought, how _strange_ , to find a crystal in my dance studio. Now, who do I know who has a mania for minerals, I asked myself—”

_“Why is it broken?”_

“I— we knocked it off the table during rehearsal. Why? It’s just a rock, right?” Anathema looked grim. Crowley suddenly had the absurd fear that she’d hidden a bug inside it. She shook her head.

“It channels energy, it’s supposed to be healing and calming and— yes, it’s just a rock,” she said at the pained expression on Crowley’s face. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not,” he said. But that prickly feeling still hadn't gone away. 

He wandered off to the kitchen to clatter some pans about until Anathema offered to order them food, then paused. He did a loop of the coffee table and came back. 

“Do me a favour, just— will you send the offers through anyway? The good, bad, and the ugly,” he said. “I don’t like Carmine knowing things I don’t. It gives her the _advantage_.”

“In… the competition?” asked Anathema. “In life?”

“Over me.”

“Huh,” Anathema said, in the tone that communicated _I am peering into your very depths and, gotta tell you mate, it’s actually more of a rock pool down there_. “This really got to you, didn’t it?”

“I just want to know where I stand from now on,” Crowley said, trying not to think too hard about the way Aziraphale had looked at him when Carmine was talking. “Even if where I stand is somewhere between skit shows and Sports Relief.”

* * *

Once upon a time, Aziraphale considered glumly, the journey to Blackpool was a joyful one. As long as they were safely within the hotel by the middle of the week, how they arrived was their own business. Some drove themselves, some opted for air travel, some hired limousines and got into all sorts of trouble before they had even reached the outskirts of Luton. Aziraphale and Tracy had been taking the journey together for years, mainly via first class carriage from Euston train station, and as such had developed little rituals to help pass the time and soothe the nerves that came with the imminent chaos that awaited them once they reached their destination. 

In some cultures, these rituals were called _drinking games_.

It came as something of a disappointment when, a few years ago, Uriel had suddenly become concerned about optics. Couldn’t give them too much free rein, considering they would be dragging the good name of the studio behind them. Much better to have everybody caged into one vehicle where they couldn’t get up to any trouble or, heaven forfend, _fun_. Shadwell helpfully suggested the name of an acquaintance who ran a coach service, and the rest was history. Aziraphale wasn’t sure which was the bigger surprise— that the _Longtail Buses_ driver was actually quite charming, or that Shadwell had a friend.

Still, not ones to be easily deterred—old and set in their ways as they were—Aziraphale and Tracy had continued observing their pre-Blackpool traditions with bloody-minded determination. Tracy, demonstrating this, bravely attempted to pour herself a shot and ended up with the entire thing in her lap when Maurice found another pothole to drive over.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she hissed, and took a quick swig from the bottle instead. “Why they make us go through this every year, I’ll never understand! How is this any better for the image! I mean, imagine if the press could see the inside of this tin can!”

Aziraphale could imagine it all too well. The cramped conditions, the obvious tribalism on display when it came to seating arrangements, the aroma of bodily musk slowly filling the vestibule thanks to the lack of functioning aircon and sealed windows; plus, Aziraphale was certain he’d seen a rat scurrying by his feet not five minutes ago. They’d have a field day with all this. 

“Me and Harry don’t understand the rules of this game,” Eve said, popping up over the back of the seats in front of them, where she was sat with Harriet Dowling— or _Harry,_ as Eve insisted on referring to her by. The two had apparently gotten incredibly raucous together after Aziraphale and Crowley had left the Halloween party, and had been fast friends ever since, despite the tabloids constant attempts to drive a wedge between them. Nothing like overcoming a spot of orchestrated misogyny to strengthen the bonds of female friendship— if Aziraphale had learned nothing else from _Legally Blonde,_ he’d learned that much.

“Well, it’s really rather simple,” Aziraphale said, topping up the travel mug she held out for him. “Every time you feel like having a drink, you have one.”

Tracy nodded along, sagely. “We used to have proper rules, only we’d get so pickled we’d end up forgetting ‘em halfway through. Always ended up having a right barney about it, didn’t we, Adam?”

“I am _begging_ you, stop talking to me,” Adam said, from across the aisle. Eve’s paramour had his own ritual for their journey. He got on the bus, took up two seats all by himself, snapped on some sort of brightly coloured acupuncture wristbands, popped on a sleep mask and did his best to slip into a coma until their time aboard was up. The dear boy did get so horribly travel sick. He’d made several requests to be allowed to travel by train over the years as the bilious exception to the rule, but with no luck— _if we do it for one, we’d have to do it for all, and then where would we be?_ Sandalphon had explained, with that soulless grin. Aziraphale was privately grateful that Adam was so focussed on keeping his breakfast down that he hadn’t yet noticed Crowley’s absence.

There was something to be said, after all, for seeking forgiveness rather than permission. Although, in Aziraphale’s opinion, Crowley was about as likely to seek forgiveness as he was to willingly sit on a coach for five hours.

“Ooh, another magpie!” Tracy cooed, leaving a fingerprint smudge on the glass. “That’s the fourth one I’ve seen today! Always thought they were very smart chaps, you know—” 

Eve, without warning, leapt up from her seat and raised a hand to her head in salute. She called out “good day, Mister Magpie, how’s your wife?” and then settled back, smiling at them as though she hadn’t just done… whatever it was that she had just done. Aziraphale, Tracy and Harriet all looked to each other to confirm that yes, that was odd, and no, they didn’t want to be the one asking for clarification. Eve, of course, missed nothing about this exchange and laughed boldly at all three of them.

“Didn’t your mums ever tell you— no, what am I saying, course they didn’t,” Eve said, wiping away a tear. “A single magpie’s bad luck. One for sorrow, y’know? Gotta salute, an’ say what I just said, an’ then they’ll leave you alone. God’s truth.”

“S’at so?” Tracy squinted at her. “What if the magpie’s not married?”

“Or not of that persuasion? Or gender, come to think of it?” Aziraphale said, taking a drink. “How can we be certain we aren’t inviting _more_ bad luck onto ourselves? One never knows, these days. Doesn’t do to assume.”

“Makes an ass out of you and me,” Harriet agreed, with all the sage wisdom of one who is completely blottoed.

_“Adam,”_ Eve pouted, nudging him across the aisle with her foot. “Tell them about the magpies, babe. Tell them I’m smart and right and to listen to me! Babe, Adam, _babe.”_

Adam sat up like a shot, and for a moment Aziraphale was convinced they were all about to get a rousing lecture on respecting the mad superstitions of his sweetheart, before the boy ripped off his sleep mask and tore his way to the back of the bus. 

“Did, uh— did he forget the bathroom’s out of order?” asked Harriet, and was swiftly answered by the unmistakable sound of retching. Aziraphale resolved then and there to salute every damn magpie he saw for the rest of the journey, and hoped that Tracy’s very potent perfume would be enough to ward off evidence of Adam’s terrible folly.

* * *

Crowley barrelled along the M40 with his music turned loud, a little bubble of sound and fury. The fury in this case was directed towards the grey-faced man in a BMW in front, who didn’t seem to realise he was in a race with Crowley but was winning nonetheless. The impact of his rude hand gestures were somewhat softened by the involuntary grin he’d worn since Wembley. When he had told Aziraphale he was driving, his partner had looked gravely concerned. _“You realise it’s a five-hour drive,”_ he had warned, as if Crowley couldn’t work a SatNav. He’d only shrugged. He so rarely had a chance to take the Bentley out, let her really stretch her legs— er, tires. Half the time driving in London felt like playing _What’s The Time, Mr Wolf?_ with the traffic lights, stopping and starting and crawling along inch by inch. A five-hour drive wasn’t much of a hardship when you were driving 2500lb of automotive monarchy.

Plus, with Crowley at the wheel, it was really more like a four-hour drive.

It was a bright, clear day. He was frolicking down the M40 with plans to buy a pack of cigarettes at the first petrol station he came to. _Transformer_ was fading into _Station to Station_. In a few hours he’d see Aziraphale, and in a few days they would talk, and in a few weeks this whole _Strictly_ ordeal would be over and they could go on a proper date. Crowley had been mentally compiling a list of places to take him all week, and while at first he’d been racking his brains for flashy and exciting locales, his motivation soon softened. Aziraphale wouldn’t be impressed by him throwing his money and weight about. He possibly—complete shocker— _wanted to get to know_ Crowley. As a person. Even more shockingly, Crowley wanted Aziraphale to get to know him, which was so far from his usual territory re: relationships that he was going to need a compass to get around. There was a Dora Maar exhibition at the Tate he’d wanted to see, and it was on at the same time as William Blake, if Aziraphale was more of a traditionalist. God, what if he was a proper traditionalist? Crowley liked Da Vinci as much as the next bloke but if Aziraphale wanted him to be titillated by Titian he might have a difficult time. 

These were good worries to have, Crowley mused, staring out the window at the last few glimpses of Oxfordshire. Low-stakes worries. He could forgive Aziraphale his Raphaels and Michelangelos—hell, all his Ninja Turtles and beyond—if Aziraphale would just stand in a room with him and hold his hand while his chest seized up at a Hockney. 

As he whistled towards Birmingham, the music cut out. He glanced at his phone, nestled in a period-inaccurate hands-free set on his dashboard, which informed him he had an incoming call from _The Wicked Witch of the West Coast._

“Answer,” he said, then, “Anathema! Be with you in a sec, just spotted an opportunity.” He moved to the inside lane and shot past Beemer, laughing at the man’s outraged beep.

“You sound happy. Communing with the road?”

“You’ve got your trees and wallows, I’ve got this.” 

Anathema tutted. “You’d pave paradise and put up a gas station.”

“I would and all. To what do I owe this honour? I thought you’d be celebrating my absence by now. Doing a _Risky Business_ in my poor, unsuspecting living room.”

“A what?”

“You know, dancing like a fool in your underwear.”

“Oh, you mean a _Love, Actually._ ”

“D’you know they offered me a part in _Love, Actually?_ Something to do with my status as a National Treasure?”

“Really? Why’d you turn it down?”

“Because it’s shit, actually.”

“Ha _ha_. Speaking of your career and it’s missed opportunities,” said Anathema, and Crowley heard papers being shuffled somewhere in the background, “you know how you said to only call you this weekend if anything good came up?”

Crowley drummed his fingers on the wheel. His heartbeat picked up. He started to get that tingle, that feeling that was part premonition and all excitement.

“Yeah?”

“Well,” Anathema paused, “I think something good might have come up.”

By the time Crowley got off the phone with Anathema, he was on the M6 past Stoke-on-Trent. He’d long left Beemer in the dust. He pulled in at the next service station, bought some Softmints and a pack of cigarettes, and squinted through his shades at a bright future, long overdue. 

* * *

* * *

The hotel on Ocean Boulevard was a four star modern mammoth that overlooked both the seafront and—regrettably—the Pleasure Beach. Aziraphale bore no grudge against amusement parks in and of themselves, he just didn’t enjoy rising on a morn, throwing wide the curtains, and being greeted by a bevvy of screaming faces plummeting down from a rollercoaster imaginatively named _The Big One._ Aziraphale imagined many of his fellow hotel guests shared this opinion, and this was why the hotel was four, and not _five,_ stars.

Luckily the restaurant attached to the hotel faced the water and so, when Crowley had texted an invite to dinner that evening, Aziraphale accepted easily and without hesitation. And then, once he had started to get dressed for the occasion, began to panic. It wasn’t that the idea of eating with Crowley was so terrible, of course, and the food here was lovely— for a four star experience, anyway. It was only that, Aziraphale considered as he fussed with his dinner jacket in the mirror, he still wasn’t quite certain where they stood. Yes, that may have been his own fault—putting a moratorium on all conversations regarding their Circumstances until the end of the week had seemed like a deft solution at the time—but what if this wasn’t just dinner, but _dinner?_ Their rehearsals had been coming along swimmingly, if by _‘swimmingly’_ one meant _‘literally needing to go for a swim afterwards to cool off’._ It was working, though— this thing between them and their routines. That couldn’t be denied. The dance, from what Aziraphale could tell as he watched them in the mirrors of their borrowed rehearsal space, looked fantastic. At the cost of his sanity, perhaps, but a small price to pay for a good score from the judges.

“Oh, get a hold of yourself, man!” Aziraphale said to his reflection, having folded and unfolded his pocket square for the fourteenth time. “It’s only _dinner_. It’s only _Crowley._ You’ve eaten with him countless times before, you are being _utterly_ ridiculous.”

Still, he made his way down to the brasserie with his heart in his throat, and it threatened to make a break for it entirely when he saw Crowley. His partner was sitting alone in the window at a four-person table, looking out towards the sea and tapping his nail against the stem of his empty wine glass. The lines of his neck strained in a way that made them look almost delicate as he saw something outside that caught his attention, and a small laugh escaped his lips— no doubt due to some petty event he would probably delight in recalling to Aziraphale, happening just out of view. Crowley’s unguarded smile, the one that rarely made an appearance unless he was certain he was unobserved, remained on his face as he turned and their eyes met. That smile cracked open, and he lazily waved two fingers in salute, to call Aziraphale to him. Aziraphale, of course, went.

“Are we expecting company?” He asked, as he reached the table. Crowley, who had risen from his seat to pull out the chair next to him for Aziraphale, laughed.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“I would, actually, that’s why I asked,” Aziraphale said, trying not to sound too relieved as he was firmly tucked into the table. This rapport was what he needed, some semblance of normality between them. Nothing to misconstrue, just— just meaningless _banter_.

Crowley settled back into his seat, and then settled back further than physics should have allowed until he was in one of his patented _leans_. His eyes glanced over Aziraphale, flicked away and back again, and then settled on some indistinct point in the middle distance.

“Like the pocket square,” he said. Aziraphale would have accused him of being a dreadful tease, but he was wearing that little flush that just dusted the top of his cheekbones that signalled he was, for once, being sincere. Ah. So much for normality.

“Thank you, my dear,” Aziraphale replied, hesitating for a moment before letting the tips of his fingers brush the wide, patterned lapel of Crowley’s velvet jacket. “I was just thinking to myself as I walked in how well you scrubbed up.”

“Scrubbed up?” Crowley snorted. “Didn’t realise I was normally so unkempt.”

“No, of course not, you’re always handsome,” Aziraphale said, knowing that it would have been cruel not to repay Crowley’s earnest compliment with the truth, “just particularly so this evening. Perhaps the sea air agrees with you.”

Crowley looked like he might have had something to say to that, but a gasp rang out across the span of the restaurant, breaking them apart like guilty teenagers who suddenly found the main light being flicked on by an overbearing parent.

“Anthony Julius Crowley, how _marvellous!”_ Eve, wearing an exceedingly lovely deep green dress, cried from the doorway. She bustled past the host and straight over to their table. Aziraphale noted she was affecting some sort of heightened RP as she spoke. “What an absolute _treat_ to see you here! Oh, do let us join you, please say that there’s room!”

“I literally called you an hour ago to arrange this,” Crowley said, looking a mix between horribly embarrassed and terribly fond and trying to conceal it all beneath a paltry veneer of disaffectedness. “You’ve been spending far, far too much time with your boyfriend.”

Adam, trailing not far behind Eve and wearing a matching green dinner suit, winked and shot at them both with his finger pistols before taking his seat next to Eve. “Alright lads? What are we drinking, then? First round’s on me.”

“Actually,” Crowley said, gesturing over the server who had been hovering nearby ever since, “it’s on me. We’re ready for it now, Lucy, ta.” She nodded, and disappeared off to the bar. 

“Oh, Crowley’s treat, eh? Wish I’d known, would’ve ordered myself a few cocktails on the way over here,” Eve said, back to her normal _timbre_ and glancing down at the menu. “You owe me, after all. Ignoring me all week, in my time of need.”

“Yeah, sorry about that, you know how it is,” Crowley said.

“I really, really don’t,” Eve replied, tightly. “Because I haven’t seen you. All. Week.”

Crowley looked to Adam, presumably for help, but the man was far too busy getting excited that they still had the macaroni and cheese on the menu.

“Look, it was nothing personal,” Crowley said, “I just didn’t know if you were upset with me about all the stuff in the papers. Didn’t want to make things worse.”

“So you thought, as my friend, the best way to make sure I wasn’t upset with you was to… leave me to suffer alone and avoid me completely, thereby making me upset with you?”

Crowley rolled his eyes, gesturing at Adam. “You’ve got Yankee Doodle Dandy over there! What else was I supposed to do?”

“Anything,” Eve said, and she was clearly holding back laughter now. “Literally anything would be better than nothing, Crowley.”

He pouted at her, really pushing his bottom lip to its limits. Aziraphale tried not to stare. “Poor, poor Eve. You’re alright, though. You seem like you’re alright. Are you alright?”

Eve took a few more moments to let him squirm, then waved a hand as if to banish any remaining negativity in the air.

“Yeah, I’m fine. To be honest, I expected this way, way sooner. There were some rumblings when Adam and Lily first broke up, a bunch of stories about me and her being sworn enemies—completely untrue, of course—but he warned me that Blackpool Week is when the shit really starts hitting the fan. I know someone in the cast has it out for me, but honestly? I’m a big, tough girl, Anthony. Can handle myself.”

“Well, if anyone gives you any more shit, just say it was all my idea,” Crowley said, winking at Eve. “Been in the game a long time, I’m used to this sort of rubbish.”

“That’s noble of you, mate,” said Adam.

“No it isn’t,” Aziraphale said, “he’s just sore that he isn’t getting the credit he feels he’s owed.”

“Yeah, that makes much more sense,” Eve nodded.

Their server appeared again, looking slightly more frazzled than she had earlier. “Terribly sorry, sir, for the delay in those drinks. We’re just having to fetch a case from the cellar. It’s not often we’re asked for it, you see, don’t always have one ready behind the bar. May I take your food order, for the time being?”

Crowley scowled a little, and Aziraphale patted his knee to placate him as he turned to the girl. “Not to worry, my dear, these things happen. Now tell me, how does the chef prepare the scallops here?”

Once he was satisfied with their methods, Aziraphale ordered for himself the pan-fried queenie scallops to start, followed by the grilled sea-bass fillets—“ _we are in a seaside resort, after all, one must show deference to the local cuisine”—_ while Crowley ordered the pan-roasted Goosnargh duck breast, slyly claiming he was _also_ showing deference to the local cuisine, which started an argument about whether ducks have ever been known to paddle about on the sea. Eve ordered for herself the only passable looking vegan item on the menu, an aubergine tagine— _“why’s it always **aubergine?** nothing against them but other vegetables do actually exist”—_ and Adam, of course, ordered his macaroni and cheese, prompting him to realise why Crowley had implied he was the sort to go around sticking feathers in his cap.

“So where’ve they got you filming tomorrow?” Crowley said.

Adam grinned excitedly, “The Pleasure Beach.”

“What does that have to do with your dance?” Aziraphale asked, frowning.

“It doesn’t,” Eve rolled her eyes, “Adam just wanted the studio to pay for him to get in.”

“What?! That’s allowed? Oh, angel, come _on—_ how come they get something fun like that and we’re filming at some pissing gazebo on the pier?”

“We’ve been over this, it’s not a _gazebo_ ,” Aziraphale said, at war with himself and his desire to have the last word whilst also wishing not to be dragged into this debate again. Luckily, he was saved when Lucy reappeared with four long-stemmed flutes and—

“Is that a bottle of _Dom fucking Pérignon?!”_ Eve said, summing up Aziraphale’s thoughts succinctly.

Crowley shrugged, as if he did this all the time. As if bottles of champagne in the triple-digits were just things that _happened_ to him. The bottle was uncorked, and their drinks poured, and Aziraphale couldn’t help the fantastical twist his thoughts took on. It was just that they were all dressed so splendidly, and the lighting in the restaurant was just the right side of dim to cast everything in a disarmingly romantic light, and Crowley really did look _frightfully_ handsome. What would they look like, from an outsider’s perspective? What did dear Lucy think when she looked at them? Were they just two couples, bickering warmly and goading one another into saying silly things and all being horribly, wretchedly fond of each other? How did he look, Aziraphale wondered, as he leant in and told Crowley he was an absolute terror for doing something so ridiculous as ordering them this champagne, here of all places? Did he look as stupidly besotted as he felt?

Crowley, for his part, just laughed at him and handed him his glass. “To Blackpool,” he said, eyes not leaving Aziraphale’s.

“To Blackpool!” the table chorused, clinking and drinking.

“And to bouncy floors!” Adam said, making Aziraphale almost snort champagne up his nose and leaving Eve and Crowley looking dreadfully confused. The two professionals clinked, and drinked, and promised their partners that before the week was out they would have a thorough understanding, though they’d wish they didn’t.

“Oh, oh, I’ve got one we can all join in on,” Eve said, holding her glass towards Crowley. “To Anthony Jetsetter Crowley, and his imminent departure for a far, far more glamorous world than this!”

“To— what, sorry?” Crowley paused with a laugh, glass halfway to tapping Aziraphale’s, who had also found himself frozen by the oddest sense of _déjà vu._

Eve rooted around in Adam’s pockets to produce her phone. She started cackling as she typed something in, before turning the phone to show them a Daily Morning Star article. 

**_STRICTLY STRUTTER SET FOR STAR-STUDDED SNORCERY SHOOT!_** the headline yelled and, despite the fact that Aziraphale considered himself something of an intelligent man, it took several attempts before he understood most of what was being said. Underneath the confounding proclamation there was a photograph of Crowley, apparently having been papped whilst in Soho leaving the— oh, for Heaven’s sake, leaving the _bookshop_. Aziraphale flushed, feeling oddly exposed by this breach of their privacy, and he wasn’t even in the photograph. The real-life Crowley apparently held no such qualms, and hooted in delight at Aziraphale’s side. 

“Finally! Give that here, let me see— ahhh, this is Basil’s camerawork. He always gets my good side somehow, makes me look younger. Never once had a bad photo in a tabloid with him behind the lens,” he nodded, satisfied, before passing her the phone back. “Of course, the story’s all rubbish, can’t believe a word of it. Laughable, really, to think I’d be in something like _that.”_

Aziraphale breathed a sigh of relief he hadn’t realised he’d been holding in. 

“The job Anathema called me about on the drive up here, though,” Crowley said, spinning his champagne flute between his dexterous fingers, “well now, that’s a different matter entirely.”

As Crowley launched into teasing everyone with just enough details to keep Adam and Eve on the hook but demurred away from outright saying what it was or when he was needed or, indeed, how it would affect the show— _“contracts are such finicky things, aren’t they? There’s always loopholes that nobody ever quite closes”_ —Aziraphale put his half-empty glass back down on the table. This was it. It _was_ happening again. He hadn’t been foolish to think so, or overly paranoid, or any of the other unkind things he told himself. As he listened to Crowley’s excited _braggadocio_ about some director or another personally wanting to set up a meeting with him, he realised he’d been mistaken, before. Everyone was overdressed for dinner, here in this less-than-perfect establishment. They all looked preposterous in their evening dresses and suit jackets amongst the overtired families of four and the view of the car park, obstructing the sea. The lighting wasn’t perfectly dim but, in fact, much too dark— too many shadows for uncertainty to hide within. Crowley looked— well. Crowley still looked unfairly handsome, Aziraphale thought, the laughter lines adorning his face deepening with every second he spoke of what exactly it was he was planning on leaving Aziraphale behind for this time.

“Az,” Adam’s voice broke through his thoughts, “you okay?”

Aziraphale was surprised to find he had stood up at some point. Their entire company was looking up at him, identical expressions of concern on their faces. His napkin slid off his lap and to the floor.

“I— yes, I’m fine, I just… well, no, actually, I seem to be a bit. A bit under the weather,” he said, knowing it sounded as weak to everyone else as it did to him. “I think I’ll have to excuse myself for the night.”

“Aziraphale, the food hasn’t even— look, do you want me to…” Crowley moved to stand, to— what? See him up to his room? Follow him? Give chase? Aziraphale felt himself shaking his head, holding out a hand to stop his partner.

“No, no. You stay and enjoy your meal, and regale our colleagues with tales of your, ah, oncoming success.” _After all, I don’t need to stick around for any of this. I’ve heard it all before,_ Aziraphale thought, turning before he could register anyone’s response and marching right for the door to the brasserie.

“Will you be alright for filming at the gazebo thing tomorrow? Should we ask for a later start?” Crowley’s call came from across the restaurant.

“Yes, jolly good! All fine there!” he yelled back without looking over his shoulder, all propriety and decorum having left him in his haste to depart. 

“And it’s not a _gazebo_ ,” Aziraphale muttered to himself, wanting the satisfaction of the last word here, even though he knew nobody could hear him. It was about the _principle_ of the thing, you see. “It’s a bandstand.”

* * *

Crowley lay starfished on his almost-comfortable hotel bed, full of good food and very good champagne and a bad feeling that crouched behind his ribs, just above the duck and Dom Pérignon. He rolled over and looked at the clock. Just gone eleven. Embarrassing, that. He’d planned to stay in the hotel bar ‘til the early(ish) hours, marinating in Aziraphale’s company. But luck wasn’t a lady, and now he was in bed before the first drunk had decorated the pavement. It hadn’t seemed right, sticking around after Aziraphale had left, and he was very aware that Adam and Eve probably had plans for the evening to which Crowley was certainly not invited— well, unless Eve wasn’t as over her teenage crush as she’d let on. They were probably nicely tipsy and cheerfully abandoning their clothes by now, god love ‘em. 

And here Crowley was, wondering if Aziraphale was the kind of unwell that allowed for brow-soothing, or the kind of unwell that kept someone emotionally tied to a toilet. He’d thought of knocking on his door, asking if he needed anything, but decided against it. Knocking on your— and there was that problem of terminology again. He still had no idea what he and Aziraphale _were._ Knocking on _someone’s_ hotel room door, for lack of a better term, in the middle of the night had Connotations. Crowley would have a hard time convincing Aziraphale that his intentions were pure, not least because he wasn’t entirely sure they were. In lieu of knocking he’d sent his partner a text, to which there had been no response. 

Crowley sat up, clicked on the TV, and flicked through the channels, settling on an ill-advised reality show where the contestants were forging battleaxes. He retrieved a spare pillow from the wardrobe, and considered calling room service, for something to do. Crowley had once stayed at the Ritz Carlton in New York, years ago, and had gotten out of the lift to find several bellboys carting a brand new mattress to one of the suites because, quote, _“the gentleman had asked for one”_. He wondered how much he could get away with in this hotel. Definitely not a mattress. Maybe an extra pillow or two, though. 

_Idle hands, and all that,_ he thought, and picked up the handset by the bed.

_“Hello, guest services?”_

“Hi, it’s room 668. Trouble you for six extra pillows?” 

A brief silence on the other end.

_“..._ **_Six_ ** _extra pillows, was that, sir?”_

“Yep.” 

_“Certainly, sir.”_

“Thanks so much.”

He hung up and checked the clock. Eleven fifteen. Disgusting. The men on telly were hacking into a side of cow ribs with their freshly forged axes. Crowley wondered how he’d have done if it was _Strictly Come Smithing_ instead. He wasn’t sure he had the arms for it. What was Aziraphale doing, right now? Was he lying on an identical bed in an identical room, several floors away? Was he, too, watching this terrible show and deeply considering the judge’s soul patch?

A member of the night staff interrupted Crowley’s internal musings on the etymology of the _soul_ bit of a soul patch to deliver unto him a luggage cart, piled high with pillows. Crowley tipped them a tenner, and spent a good few minutes arranging the pillows into a sort of nest for himself in bed. He went looking for a film, found _The Devil Wears Prada,_ and settled in. 

Ten minutes later, he was back on the phone. 

_“Hello, guest services?”_

“Hi, sorry, 668 again. Any chance of another few pillows?”

A slightly longer silence, this time. 

_“Of course. How many, sir?”_

“Oh, same as last time should do the trick.”

_“Be with you in a moment.”_

When Crowley looked at his phone, he saw that Aziraphale had read his message, although he still hadn’t replied. Not asleep, then. Or in a monogamous relationship with the bathroom floor. What _was_ he doing with his evening? Reading, most likely. Possibly having a bath. Oh, that was a nice thought. Aziraphale, book in hand, wodge of chocolate cake from room service balanced on the edge of the tub, the bubbles slowly dissolving…

The pillows came. Crowley tipped them a twenty and hauled the pillows in before the lad could see his makeshift fort. He then constructed himself a warm, floppy igloo, and curled up just in time to watch Meryl Streep explain blue sweaters to a hapless Anne Hathaway.

He could just go find out in person what his partner was up to, the one obstacle being that he didn’t actually know Aziraphale’s room number. He could ring and ask, though. Offer to bring him something. Sure, there were people here whose literal job it was to bring him something if he asked, but it wouldn’t have that _personal_ touch, would it? At the very least Crowley should ring to see how he was. It would be nice to hear his voice. 

He dialled.

_“Hello, guest services?”_

A different voice, this time.

“Hi, yeah, 668. Any chance of—”

_“Is this about pillows, sir?”_

“Sorry?”

_“My colleague’s shift just finished, sir. He informed me that I may get another call.”_

“Yeah, uh—” 

_“If I may ask, what is it that you’re doing with these pillows, sir?”_

Crowley hung up. Looked like twelve was the limit, then. 

In a fit of annoyance he kicked the pillows off, grabbed his coat, and fished out the petrol station cigarettes. He didn’t have to lie here feeling sorry for himself. He could feel sorry for himself just as effectively outside, with a tab. Hat on head, boots on feet, keycard in pocket, he shouldered his way out of his hotel room.

And came face-to-face with Aziraphale, half-in his dressing gown and with an unlit cigarette between his lips. 

“Oh,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale blinked. “Ah,” he said. He looked just as surprised to see Crowley as Crowley was to see him, which he didn’t understand until he glanced over Aziraphale’s shoulder to see the door of 670, slightly ajar. 

“It, ah. Seems we’re neighbours,” said Aziraphale, looking almost apologetic.

“Handy,” was the first thing out of Crowley’s mouth, and he bit the inside of his cheek. Aziraphale swallowed. “For getting to rehearsal,” he amended. 

“Yes. Yes, quite.” 

“How are you feeling?”

“Better, thank you.” Aziraphale’s hair was mussed. He was wearing what looked like—Jesus wept— _silk pyjamas_ , with a v-neck jumper hastily pulled over the top and a dressing-gown on top of that. The collar of his pyjamas had been left open, and Crowley could see a square inch of greying hair on his chest. 

“You look like a survivor from the Titanic.”

“Yes, well, you look about ready to stretch out on a _chaise longue_ for Leo.”

Crowley looked down at himself, and realised he hadn’t put on a shirt. He gathered the overcoat around himself. “Don’t be daft, I’d be off with the guy who gave me the bloody big diamond,” he said, flashing a smile. He tapped a cigarette out of the pack. “You, uh. Heading out?”

Something in Aziraphale’s eyes shuttered. “I was.”

“Me too. Can’t sleep.”

“Me either.”

“Want some company?” Aziraphale’s head snapped up, and Crowley hastily clarified, “outside, I mean. For a smoke. Dangerous, Blackpool streets, could get mugged by a seagull. Should go in pairs, really.” 

Aziraphale looked down at the cigarette in his hand like he had forgotten it was there. “Yes. I mean, no. I,” he frowned, and the unease that Crowley had felt all evening ratcheted up a notch. “I really should stop this,” he said, staring at the cigarette.

“Filthy habit,” agreed Crowley. “Quit another night, though.”

“No,” said Aziraphale, slightly more assured, “I really should. You should, too. Terrible for you, everyone says so. Especially at our age. In fact, we should go to bed.” He winced at his own phrasing. “You know what I mean.”

“Angel,” said Crowley, feeling a little out of his depth, “are you sure you’re feeling alright? Do you want me to call down for something? They know me at Reception by now. It might not be the Ritz but I’m sure they can manage fizzy water and some paracetamol.”

Aziraphale looked at him for a long moment, expression softening. “Crowley,” he said, “were you ever—”

“Mr Crowley?”

A member of guest services had appeared by Crowley’s elbow. She was pushing a cart piled high with pillows. 

“Reception said it would probably be easier if you just took as many as you want,” she said cheerfully. “Save you having to ring down.”

“Oh. Thanks,” said Crowley. “Don’t ask,” he said to Aziraphale. 

“I wasn’t going to,” said Aziraphale. He began fumbling in his pocket for the key. “I actually feel very tired, suddenly.”

“Me too,” Crowley lied. “Now I’ve got these— all these pillows I asked for.”

“Yes. Good. Well. Goodnight, Crowley.”

“Goodnight, angel.”

“Goodnight, miss,” Aziraphale nodded at the girl, who responded with a cheery “Goodnight, Mister Fell!”

Crowley watched the door close, heard the lock and chain. He hoped that, whatever it was that was unsettling Aziraphale’s mind or stomach, it would be gone by morning. 

The staff member coughed. “Another six pillows, sir? Or would you like a different amount this time?”

_Idle hands,_ Crowley thought again, still staring at Aziraphale’s closed door.

“Actually, what’s your policy on extra mattresses?”

* * *

The Blackpool Tower Ballroom was the Disneyland California of the dancing world. At least, this was how Gabriel would describe it. This was, actually, how Gabriel _had_ described it upon several occasions, when interviewed for the RadioTimes about Blackpool Week. _“The old girl’s been around for a while, practically a relic!” The Strictly showrunner told us, when he had a moment between morning meetings and his daily jog around the perimeter of the studio lot. “But if you’re one of these dancing types, and you hear the words ‘you’re going to Blackpool!’, well you just light up like a kid at Christmas!”_

Aziraphale had once harboured such illusions about the Blackpool Tower Ballroom. It was a tremendous honour, of course, to dance across its unfortunately springy floor. The ballroom was spectacular, and the rush one felt from performing in that venerated space was incredible, there was no getting around that. For decades, this was where the best of the best from all around the world had come to compete, and he and his fellow professionals were lucky to dance here year in year out, whether with a partner or as part of the ensemble cast. That, in Aziraphale’s opinion, was where their luck ran out. Much like the ever-cheerful Cast at the Walt Disney parks, Aziraphale knew that a lifetime of working behind the curtain of magical places left you with very little belief left to suspend. One perfect day or night in such a venue was only made possible by an awful lot of people working very hard in cramped places.

Like any other part of English theatrical heritage, the Ballroom was not her original model. Quite petite upon her unveiling, she had been first expanded in the late 1800s, and then suffered a fire in the mid-1950s which put her out of commission for a few years. Apparently, during all of this renovating, nobody thought that _perhaps_ it might be a smart idea to pop in a few extra dressing rooms. Or bigger back doors for set pieces to fit through. Or toilets. Or _anything_ at all that might make working backstage less taxing on those trying their best to put on a show. Their final costume fitting with Tracy on Friday afternoon was held in the prop-area underneath the stage. Crowley kept hitting his head off the low doorways, and one of the set-dressers could be found huddled in a corner, sobbing into a pile of plywood and polystyrene. 

“They’ve got the physio in the disabled loo this year,” Tracy told them both, apparently happy to ignore the woman having a workplace-related breakdown.

“That sounds… hygienic,” Crowley had said, pulling a face.

“It’s a piss-take is what it is! I deserve that space! Look at me, how the blazes am I supposed to work like this?!” she demanded, and, as if to prove her point, an enormous shoulder-pad from Carmine’s costume toppled from a nearby shelf and caused a small sequin-based avalanche. 

The two of them had left her to it after that, retreating to the relative sanctuary of their borrowed rehearsal space. It was the most privacy they’d had all week. Aziraphale was pleased with what they’d gotten from the available choices— an out-of-the-way little church, only recently converted into a dance studio. Despite the preserved ceilings and stained glass windows, the chill that had chased them since filming at the bandstand that morning was kept at bay. By early evening they had shed the heavy layers worn in deference to the season and were back in their usual rehearsal gear— Crowley in his black vest and loose-fit trousers, Aziraphale in his rolled up shirtsleeves. It was a tiring routine, all told. While the rhumba wasn’t one of the more complex latin dances, it was one that relied on control and form to make it look good. The pace was slow, yes, but maintaining that control over your own movements at all times took its toll on the body.

Maintaining control took its toll everywhere, if Aziraphale was being honest.

They were coming up to the end of their umpteenth run-through of the dance and Aziraphale, naturally, knew his cues. He was supposed to drag Crowley into him one last time, before letting his partner push him aside. Crowley would walk away from him, and the dance would be over. 

Only when the cue came, he couldn’t let go. All week it had been like he was wearing himself thinner and thinner on the sharp edge of something. The music had finished, but he hadn’t gone anywhere. 

“Aziraphale,” Crowley said, low and quiet in the lofty space. It almost sounded like a question. 

Aziraphale’s hand felt glued to Crowley’s hip. He caught himself rubbing small circles with his thumb over the ridge of bone. It took effort to stop, and when he did Crowley pressed closer, chasing the touch. With an effort, he managed to release his grip. Crowley nodded, like they were in this together, like they were in alliance to keep something that was bigger than both of them at bay. They barely spoke as they worked, other than for Aziraphale to correct something in Crowley’s posture or demonstrate the footwork or fetch water. Every time they pulled apart it felt more and more like they were coming up for air.

“You’re doing something different,” said Aziraphale, as Crowley’s wrist flicked in a lazy sort of way at the end of an extension. 

“I’m playing a character.” He pulled at the neck of his t-shirt where it was stuck to his skin, dark with sweat. “Dunno why I didn’t lean into that sooner, worked for the paso. Can I— if I run my hand through my hair at this turn here, will it ruin everything?”

“Show me?”

Crowley showed him. 

“No. That’s good, I see what you mean.”

“Because it’s a scene, isn’t it?”

Aziraphale concentrated on his breathing. “Yes, it’s a scene. And what if I…?”

They traded ideas back and forth, hardly needing to verbalise something before the other picked it up and ran with it. Small movements, flourishes of style. It was the first time Aziraphale had taken suggestions from anybody he worked with. Every time he took up one of Crowley’s cues he caught a flicker of something in his eyes, a hunger, and it turned his tongue to lead.

An hour passed. He knew they should take a break, soon.

“Again,” said Aziraphale.

They did the routine twice more, Crowley’s movements growing cleaner, more controlled, and somehow this made it look… Aziraphale wasn’t certain how to best describe it. It was like he had just tumbled out of bed, or was about to tumble back into it. Aziraphale pulled away to get some water, but this time it was Crowley who didn’t release his hand.

“Again,” Crowley murmured. Sweat stuck a strand of hair to his forehead, and Aziraphale brushed it away, fingertips grazing over his skin. Crowley’s eyes never left his.

They did it again.

Aziraphale felt hot, and lightheaded. He retrieved his and Crowley’s water bottles. He watched Crowley’s throat work as he swallowed. They should stop, he knew. They were treading on the edge of something dangerous, despite their agreement, and yet the idea of leaving, of not touching him any more, was abhorrent to him. 

“Do you want to stop for the night?” he asked, hoping the answer was _no_ , knowing it should be _yes_.

“No,” said Crowley. “Do you?”

“No.”

They moved back into position.

“You alright?” asked Crowley.

“Warm,” murmured Aziraphale.

Without speaking, Crowley reached up and began to undo Aziraphale’s bow tie. He gave him plenty of time to move. Aziraphale felt the fabric slide out from under his collar in one slow motion, and thought about every time he had performed this small intimacy for Crowley, a pair of sunglasses tucked away in his pocket the same way Crowley was pocketing his tie now. Had it felt like this for Crowley, he wondered? Had it made his pulse leap at his throat in the same manner? Surely not. Nobody was built to withstand this sort of pressure. 

He caught Crowley’s hand in his, just as Crowley’s clever fingers moved to the second button of his shirt.

For a moment they stared at each other, breathing hard. Crowley watched him, still and sure. His eyes were unblinking, his irises a thin band of gold around blown pupils. It was this unwavering, wanting gaze that did it, that added the last gentle bit of pressure; Aziraphale felt something inside of himself give way.

There wasn’t a lock on the rehearsal room door, but there was a folding chair that could be wedged under the handle. They could have it out right here and now. Crowley wanted to. Every part of his body was pulling towards Aziraphale with the same intensity that Aziraphale’s pulled towards his. It would be easy to finish what they’d started in that doorway. It would be easy, oh so easy, to lean in and kiss him again; to chase the sweat along his neck with his tongue, drop a hand to the drawstring of those ridiculous trousers; Aziraphale could watch him come apart in the mirrors lining the studio wall. What on Earth was he holding out for? Crowley was leaving. Maybe not this week, maybe not the next, but eventually that unavoidable reality that had frightened Aziraphale so much to contemplate would become truth, so why fight it? They could have an affair, or a fling, or a tryst, or whatever Crowley wanted to call it, and it would be good, Aziraphale _knew_ it would be. Best of his life, perhaps, however ephemeral it may end up being. And it could begin right now, up against the wall of this rehearsal space, because Crowley was so light and so sharp and so beautiful and so daring and Aziraphale wanted him more than he had wanted anything in his soft and comfortable life.

Crowley’s mouth was inches from his. “Angel,” he murmured, voice rough with want, and suddenly Aziraphale knew it was hopeless.

But instead of kissing him, Crowley dropped his hand from his shirt. 

“This is… and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think this is a bad idea.”

Aziraphale managed an unintelligible sound that eventually resolved into, “Pardon?”

Crowley shook his head, still so close that Aziraphale almost got hair in his mouth. “It’s— I mean, don’t get me wrong, I saw you eyeing up the _barre_ and I like where your head’s at, pretty sure I’ve thought about that myself a couple dozen times over the last month or so. But we had a plan, didn’t we? Or… or an agreement.” 

It was at this point, fingers trailing through the sweat pooled at the small of Crowley’s back, that Aziraphale managed to find the will to do what was necessary. He dropped his face into the crook of Crowley’s neck, and nodded. 

“Christ,” he said into Crowley’s skin. “You’re right. Crowley, I—I’m sorry. I’m just.”

“Yeah, I know. Me too.” He felt Crowley’s nose nudge against his temple, breath cool against his warm, damp skin. 

“Whoops,” said Aziraphale, which was possibly down to the lack of oxygen flowing to his brain. He stifled a very unbecoming giggle.

“Whoops is right,” Crowley said. “S’alright, angel, I think I can—I can wait. As long as you like.”

It was odd, the two of them sweating like sinners in an actual church, clinging together as they walked back from the edge of something foolish. He felt more laughter bubbling up.

“We should go back to the hotel,” Aziraphale heard himself say. “Separately, I mean.”

“Yeah.” Crowley huffed a laugh. “Have a cold shower. Eat some cornflakes.”

“I think I need to be plunged headfirst into the Irish Sea,” said Aziraphale weakly.

“Don’t be dramatic, I’m sure an ice bath would do.”

“A great deal of ice,” he mumbled. “And rubber ducks. Can’t be— nothing kills the mood like a rubber duck.”

“You can ask guest services for one, they’re very obliging. Could get a whole army. Or—a flock. A paddle? I think it’s a paddle of ducks. Might be a different collective noun if they’re rubber, though. I’m babbling.”

“Just slightly,” said Aziraphale. With effort, he detached himself from Crowley’s neck and stepped away. He felt raw. They hadn’t even done anything, and he felt wrecked. He stole a glance at Crowley, who _looked_ wrecked, and that nearly undid him all over again. Crowley caught his eyes roaming and laughed, a soft little stutter of a thing, which seemed to settle the air between them somewhat.

“Reckon we managed to scandalise the big guy up there, at least?” Crowley asked, grinning at him. For a panicked moment, Aziraphale thought he might have meant Gabriel, until Crowley indicated with his chin to the far wall, where a stained glass depiction of Jesus had overseen their entire rehearsal. Aziraphale tutted.

“With the way he chose to live his life, I hardly think there’d be much left out there to scandalise him. A very open, accepting sort of man— or so I’ve heard. That’s the whole _point,_ Crowley.” Aziraphale pointedly decided _not_ to think about the fact that he definitely remembered taking the poor man’s name in vain at one point during proceedings.

“Yeah, but what about all that _‘lead us not into temptation’_ stuff?” Crowley said, beginning to gather up his gear. “The rest of the rules are a bit iffy, but the temptation bit’s pretty cut and dry.” 

“I think you actually led us _out_ of temptation there, my dear,” Aziraphale informed him, and tried not to laugh too much at the horror and disappointment writ large across Crowley’s face at the accusation. Pleased that they’d managed to wrap up the night with some levity, Aziraphale let the tension melt out of his body. He really was plumb tuckered— sharing a very thin hotel wall with the unwise object of one’s affections did not for a restful night’s sleep make. He’d lain awake into the wee small hours craving the cigarette he was denied via his own ridiculous panic upon encountering Crowley in the corridor, and a few other things besides. Something about Blackpool had shaken Aziraphale loose, shoogled the insides of his mind around a bit, and now things that he’d thought he had a tight lid on were threatening to spring open. He wanted reassurance that his choices were the right ones, but the only person he could ask was Crowley, who hardly had an objective viewpoint on the whole affair. 

_Not an affair,_ Aziraphale chided himself, gathering up the last of his things, _not an affair at all, now. You agreed._

Aziraphale couldn’t afford to think of Crowley in any way other than purely professional for the next twenty-four hours, and so he wouldn’t, and that was that. Then they could sit down like the adults they were and discuss these unfortunate events over tea rather than rutting in a back room like over-stimulated teenagers. They were fine, he said to himself, for the millionth time this week. They were going to be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi guys, we're _baaaaack!_ we promised we would be!
> 
> if you didn't read the above in the voices of gonzo and rizzo from muppet christmas carol, then we had very different upbringings and we respect that.
> 
> HELLO FRIENDS OH WE HAVE MISSED YOU SO MUCH! and no, your eyes do not deceive you (and mort _didn't_ miss a chunk of the chapter this time round). this is, in fact, Blackpool Week Part One. keep your peepers peeled for Part Two, kids. it's on the horizon.
> 
>  **edit** FUCK TOTALLY FORGOT huuuuuuuge thanks to [allegra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/attheborder/pseuds/attheborder) for loaning us yasti, whomst we love and are determined to make the final pam of the GO fanfic 'verse. allegra, you're a real one, and we wish yasti was a real one because we adore her.
> 
> hope you enjoyed the chapter, and Happy Halloween you beautiful babies! get spooky, or whatever it is you like to do on this most glorious of days, and please join us in wishing mort's mum a wonderful birthday. we love you, witchy lady. thanks for all the support.


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